During the last week of October the XII Corps began
to map plans for the day when the Allied supply situation would allow the Third
Army to resume the offensive. On 3 November General Eddy issued Field Order
No. 10 giving the general mission for the drive now scheduled to open between
5 and 8 November. Faulquemont, about twenty miles east of the front lines of
the 80th Division on the main railroad between Metz and Saarbruecken, was designated
as the first objective. Thereafter the XII Corps was to advance "rapidly"
to the northeast and secure a bridgehead over the Rhine River, in the sector
between Oppenheim (south of Mainz) and Mannheim. The first general objective
east of the Rhine was indicated tentatively as the Darmstadt area.

General Eddy had a very sizable force under his command
for this operation: three infantry divisions, including the veteran 35th and
80th-now brought up to strength by replacements-and the new 26th; two veteran
armored divisions, the 4th and 6th; and seventeen battalions of field artillery,
approximately nine engineer battalions, seven tank destroyer battalions, seven
antiaircraft artillery battalions, three separate tank battalions, and two squadrons
of mechanized cavalry.

American intelligence agencies estimated the German
strength opposite the XII Corps as two complete infantry divisions (the 559th
and 361st VG Division), plus a part of the 48th Division and
some smaller formations, giving a strength of about 15,000 men and twenty tanks
or assault guns. In addition it was believed that the 11th Panzer Division
and the panzer regi-

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ment of the 21st Panzer Division were reforming in rearward areas within
the XII Corps zone of advance. This G-2 appreciation was fairly accurate, although
the 21st Panzer Division actually was far to the south in the Nineteenth
Army area.

The 361st VG Division (Colonel Alfred Philippi)
had come into the Moyenvic sector on 23 October, there relieving the 11th
Panzer Division. New and unseasoned, it was organized under a reduced T/O
with two battalions per regiment and manned with a collection of sailors, Luftwaffe
personnel, and a miscellany of other similar troops stiffened by a substantial
number of veteran officers and noncoms. Artillery and train were horse-drawn‑indeed
the movement of the division from north Holland had been delayed for several
days by an epidemic among its horses. Unlike other divisions, whose artillery
had been left immobile by the shortage of automotive prime movers and gasoline,
the 361st was able to haul its full complement of guns. In addition the
division had one battery of assault guns.

The 559th VG Division (Muehlen), still in the
Château-Salins area, had been roughly handled by the XII Corps in earlier
fighting but could hardly be considered a weak division‑at least in comparison
with other VG divisions on the Western Front. However, it did lack tank destroyers
and other heavy antitank weapons. The 48th Division (Generalleutnant
Carl Casper) had fought against Third Army troops at Chartres and then, in September,
had taken extremely heavy losses in the fighting in Luxembourg. On 13 October
the 48th was sent in opposite the 80th Division to relieve the wrecked
553d VG Division, although it too was far below strength. The 48th
had been rebuilt, but with overage replacements, and now it was considered
one of the poorest divisions on the First Army front. Two of its regiments
had had some training, but the third (the 128th Regiment) was not yet
ready for combat.

During October the headquarters of the Fifth Panzer
Army and the XLVII Panzer Corps had been withdrawn from Army Group
G. On I November the LVIII Panzer Corps headquarters went north to
the Seventh Army and was replaced by the LXXXIX Corps (General
der Infantrie Gustav Hoehne), which took over the sector on the left flank of
Priess' XIII SS Corps. On the eve of the American offensive the German
order of battle opposite XII Corps was as follows: the 361st VG Division,
assigned to the LXXXIX Corps, disposed in the sector from the Marne-Rhin
Canal up to a point just west of Moyenvic; the 559th VG Division, deployed
toward the west with its right boundary at Malaucourt; and the 48th Division,
holding a

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line from Malaucourt to north of Eply. These last two divisions were under the
XIII SS Corps.2

Although General Balck had outlined a detailed defense
plan to his subordinates, based on the collection of local reserves for immediate
counterattack, the German divisions, understrength as they were, could not afford
the luxury of large tactical reserves. Early in November the 48th Division
had one battalion in reserve at Delme Ridge; the 559th VG Division was
rotating its regiments in a reserve position in the Château-Salins area,
and the 361st VG Division had a battalion in reserve near Dieuze. Few,
if any, changes were made in these allocations of reserves before the American
attack. The 11th Panzer Division remained the only division in operational
reserve available to Army Group G in the area west of St. Avold. This
division had been re‑equipped after the September battles with the 4th
Armored Division; on 8 November it had a complement of nineteen Mark IV tanks
and fifty new Panthers, but not more than one or two tank destroyers. The reserve
location of the 11th Panzer Division had been chosen with an eye to meeting
an attack from either Thionville or what the Germans still called the "Pont-à-Mousson
bridgehead." But when the First Army commander had raised the question
as to where the 11th Panzer Division would counterattack in case the
American offensive should strike in both these sectors, General Balck, with
no other reserves at hand, could only defer an answer.

Hitler himself added another reserve component to Army
Group G at the eleventh hour by sending it the 401st Volks Artillery
Corps. The five artillery battalions making up this new unit were detraining
at St. Avold in the first week of November. Finally, the 243d Assault Gun
Brigade really a battalion-was ordered to the Dieuze area and plans were
made to relieve the 21St Panzer Division from the Nineteenth Army
and send it behind the First Army lines for needed rehabilitation.
Both of these units, however, failed to arrive in the First Army zone
before the Americans struck.3

During its first weeks in France, General Patton's Third
Army had thrust deep into the Continent. In contrast to this swift campaign,
the operations of XII Corps, begun on 8 November and continued through early
December, took on the character of a far more conventional type of warfare.
The offensive spirit had not changed-but the terrain and the weather had.

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After passing the Moselle River and clearing the irregular
scarps to the east, the right wing of the Third Army had debouched into the rich
farming country of Lorraine. The territory east of the Moselle, called by the
French "la Plaine," was gently rolling, interspersed with irregular
watercourses and dotted with forests and hills. Military geographers and historians
recognized this area as "the Lorraine gateway," since historically it
had formed a natural route between the Vosges mountains to the south and the western
German mountains in the north. But although it permits greater ease of entrance
or exit between eastern France and the Rhine Valley than the mountains on either
side, the Lorraine gateway also has its barriers. To the east the Sarre River
and the lower Vosges act as a curtain connecting the bastions formed by the Vosges
and the western German mountains. The Sarre River position in turn is strengthened
on its southern flank by the maze of forests, swamps, and lakes in the triangle
bounded by Dieuze-Mittersheim-Gondrexange, and on its northern flank by the Saar
Heights which rim the Saar Basin.

West of the Sarre River and directly in front of the
XII Corps lay two long, narrow plateau spurs paralleling the projected American
line of advance. (Map 7) These two outcroppings are separated by the
Petite Seille River. They are generally known by the names of the most important
towns near them the Morhange plateau in the north and the Dieuze plateau in
the south. Perhaps a more accurate identification is furnished by the forests
which cover them, since the Forêt de Bride et de Koecking runs nearly
the entire length of the Dieuze plateau, and the Morhange plateau is outlined
in its southwestern extremity by the Forêt de Château-Salins. Any
advance eastward along the valley of the Seille would have to pass under the
shadow of the plateau covered by the Forêt de Bride et de Koecking, and
any move northeast toward Morhange would be constricted by the two plateaus.
To the northwest lies an isolated military barrier known to the Americans as
Delme Ridge (Côte de Delme). It has fairly abrupt slopes and dominates
the Seille Basin. Delme Ridge has long been recognized as having a prime tactical
importance: first, because the Seille River, at its foot, forms a local natural
re-entrant running back into the Moselle position; second, because Delme Ridge
itself affords observation over the entire area bounded by the Nied and the
Seille.

In the years prior to 1914 the French General Staff,
under the influence of the Grandmaison school of strategy, planned, in the event
of war with Germany, to take the offensive in the first days and strike obliquely,
into the

[314]

MAP NO. 7

flank of what the French thought would be the German route of advance with a
double-headed offensive through the Belfort Gap and the southern sector of the
Lorraine gateway. On 14 August 1914 the French began this double attack. Four
days later, after overrunning the forward German defense line which extended
from Delme Ridge via Château-Salins and Juvelize (or Geistkirch) across
the Marne-Rhin Canal to Blâmont, the French Second Army (Castelnau) and
a part of the First Army (Dubail) were in contact with the main forces of the
German Sixth Army, commanded by Archduke Rupprecht of Bavaria, The battle which
followed, on 19 and 20 August, is generally known as the Battle of Morhange,
although it covered much more terrain than just the approaches to that city.
This battle is instructive since the French were faced with most of the tactical
problems encountered on the same ground by the XII Corps in November 1944

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Because the Germans in 1914 held Delme Ridge in strength
and could readily be reinforced from Metz, Castelnau made no attempt to take the
ridge, leaving a reserve infantry division to contain the position and cover his
left flank and rear. The 20 Corps, commanded by General Foch, advanced across
the Seille between Chambrey and Moyenvic, took the valley route toward Morhange
(with its ultimate objective as Faulquemont), skirted the Forêt de Château-Salins,
and crossed the western tip of the Forêt de Bride et de Koecking. Initially
the enemy opposition in the valley was none too strong and , by the morning of
20 August the 20 Corps held a line from Chicourt to Conthil. On the right the
15 Corps attacked diagonally from Moncourt into the Seille valley and after bitter
fighting reached Dieuze, which it held for a few hours. Farther to the east the
16 Corps advanced directly north, threading its way through the swamps and forests
between Dieuze and Saarburg in an attempt to turn the German position by an attack
along the east bank of the Sarre River. The terrain forced the 16 Corps to dissipate
its strength in small detachments and the advance finally was brought to a halt
in the neighborhood of Loudrefing. Then, as the German artillery began to play
havoc with the attackers on the morning Of 20 August, the 16 Corps was forced
to fall back in a hurried retreat. Now the Bavarians counterattacked all along
the front, leaving the cover of the forests and pouring down from the Dieuze and
Morhange plateaus, while their heavier guns silenced the French 75's. Caught in
the valleys below, the French could not hold. Castelnau's army fell back on Nancy
and the Grand Couronné, covered by Foch's 20 Corps which fought a rear
guard action near Château-Salins where the two valleys converged. In August
1914 the French were beaten by heavy field artillery, by the machine gun, and
by the German possession of admirable defensive positions. In November 1944 the
attacker possessed the superiority in materiel-as well as numbers-but the Germans
again had the advantage of the ground and in addition were to be favored by the
autumn rains.4

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The XII Corps plan of attack was readyby 5 November. D Day would be set by General Patton.
The scheme of maneuver was simple. Since the area ahead was so broken up by streams,
woods, and isolated elevations as to make detailed tactical planning fruitless,
General Eddy and his division commanders allowed a free hand to the subordinate
leaders who would direct the action on the battleground.5
The three infantry divisions would launch the attack, making a coordinated advance
along the entire corps front. The two armored divisions, the 4th behind the right
wing and the 6th behind the left, had orders to push into the van and lead the
attack as soon as the German forward lines were broken and a favorable position
for further exploitation was secured.

In this attack, as in the three-division operation a
month earlier, the XII Corps could rely on its tremendous superiority in the
artillery arm-a superiority which made initial success certain whether or not
the American Air Force was able to support the offensive. The XII Corps artillery
fire plan again was elaborate and detailed. Tactical surprise would be sacrificed
in order to bring the greatest weight of metal against the forward enemy positions,
on which the Germans had worked and sweated for a month past under the glasses
of American observers. The seventeen battalions of corps artillery would fire
a preparation for three and a half hours (H minus 60 minutes to H plus 150),
with twenty battalions of division artillery strengthening the fire during the
first thirty minutes. Of the 380 concentrations planned, 190 would be fired
on enemy artillery positions; for the most important targets a concentration
was charted every three minutes. To thicken this terrific fire the 90-mm. guns
of the antiaircraft artillery battalions, the 3-inch guns of the tank destroyers,
and the 105-rnm howitzers of the regimental cannon companies were pushed forward
close behind the infantry's line of departure. By 5 November the artillery had
completed its registrations, and only just in time, for torrential rains and
low‑hanging clouds grounded the artillery observation planes and blinded
the American observation posts.6

These preparations were reminiscent of the tactics of
1916 and the close coordination then developing in the artillery-infantry team.
There was less

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unanimity of thought, however, on the use of armor in the coming operation.
General Patton believed, and stated this belief at every opportunity, that tanks
could easily breach the West Wall, now the big obstacle athwart the route to the
Rhine. But many of the veteran junior officers in the armored divisions were less
sanguine and privately held the opinion that the armor would be cut to pieces
in the maze of antitank defenses ahead. Of greater immediate concern was the problem
of tank going in the November mud. Many believed that the campaign was beginning
a month too late-a belief shared by infantry and armored officers alike. There
was nevertheless considerable optimism among the troops and their leaders, though
this optimism was less flaunted than it had been in August and September. Now
it was tempered by the long period of inactivity, the mud and the rain, and their
exaggerated estimate of the strength of the German West Wall.

Beginning on 5 November, the first date possible for
the attack according to Third Army plans, rain fell with only brief intermissions.
On 7 November a downpour began that lasted without a break for twenty-four hours.
General Patton could wait no longer for flying weather and gave the code words,
"Play ball," which were to begin the XII Corps advance on the morning
of 8 November. At nightfall on 7 November the infantry slowly toiled through
rivers of mud into position for the attack. So began the Third Army's education
in Napoleon's "fifth element of war"- mud- bringing for some a personal appreciation of what other Americans had experienced in France a generation
earlier. This November campaign would lack the dash and the brilliant successes
of earlier operations by the Third Army, but it would record a heroic story
of endurance and devotion to duty.

H Hour came at 0600 on 8 November with most of the elements
of the three infantry divisions moving forward as had been planned. On the right
the 26th Division advanced with the 104th, 101st, and 328th Infantry abreast
(left to right). In the center the 35th Division, attacking on a narrower front,
led off with the 137th and 320th Infantry in line (left to right) and the 134th
Infantry in reserve. On the left the 80th Division attacked with the 317th,
318th, and 319th Infantry abreast (left to right). The XII Corps right flank,
abutting on the Marne-Rhin Canal, was covered by the 2d Cavalry Group; its left
flank was protected by the XX Corps, whose advance was scheduled to begin on
the following day.

The opening bombardment by the massed field artillery
battalions smashed the forward enemy positions, destroyed communications, and
effectively neu-

[318]

tralized most of the German guns. The XII Corps artillery fired 21,933 rounds
in the twenty-four hours from 0600 on 8 November to 0600 of the next day, the
gunners using time fire wherever possible because impact fuses often failed to
detonate in the mud. Later, as the bad weather abated, planes from the IX and
XIX TAC's swooped down to give close support by striking at woods, towns, and
entrenchments.

The infantry advance, in its early hours, found little
will to resist among the German grenadiers and machine gunners whose carefully
prepared dugouts and trenches had received such a merciless pounding. As always,
there were small islands of resistance where a few determined grenadiers held
stubbornly in place and forced the attackers to recoil, necessitating the arduous
business of outflanking the position or making costly and repeated frontal assaults.
Mud, however, slowed the American infantry more than did the German line. The
Seille River had flooded its banks, with the highest waters since 1919, and
fields and woods along the river channel had turned to quagmires or veritable
lakes. But in spite of the mud and cold the infantry moved steadily forward.
Over a thousand Germans in the front-line positions were captured in the rapid
advance of this first day and a large quantity of enemy equipment was taken
or destroyed.

It is impossible to tell to what degree the German troops
and commanders were caught by surprise on the morning of 8 November. German
intelligence had reported unusual vehicular activity behind the XII Corps lines
on the nights before the attack. But the top intelligence officers at Army Group
G believed that in all probability the next major American thrust would come
in the Thionville sector or between Metz and Pont-à-Mousson. This opinion was
reinforced by the continued activity on the XX Corps front, and by the American
destruction of the Etang de Lindre dam, which was interpreted as an indication
of a purely defensive attitude in the XII Corps sector. OB WEST did not share
the view that Patton would make the prospective drive with his left. On 2 November
the G-2 at Rundstedt's headquarters predicted that the Third Army would launch
a general attack all along its front- but he did not hazard a guess as
to the date. Apparently the enemy front-line troops did not anticipate
any immediate danger, for those taken prisoner on the first day said that their
positions were regarded as a "winter line," in which they were to
sit out a lull in operations until spring arrived. Possibly there was a division
of opinion in the higher German headquarters. There is evidence that at least
a few German intelligence officers predicted that Gen-

[319]

eral Patton would launch an attack on 8 November in commemoration of the Allied
landings in North Africa on that date twoyears before; but no last minute
changes were made in the German order of battle to indicate that such a prediction
was given any weight.7 In any case it is unlikely
that the limited German forces opposite the Third Army could have done more than
they did in the face of the first crushing blow of men and metal thrown against
them. Most of the German officers who faced the attack of 8 November later agreed
that careful preparations and excellent camouflage had won tactical surprise for
the Americans.8

The First
Phase of the 26th Infantry Division Advance

On the night of 7-8 November the 26th Infantry Division
moved up to its attack positions, prepared to carry forward the right wing of
the XIICorps in the drive scheduled for the morrow. (Map XXVII) The
104th Infantry assembled opposite Salonnes and Vic-sur-Seille, the assault companies
of the 101st concentrated near the "Five Points" on highway 414, which
led to Moyenvic, and the 328th faced east toward Moncourt and Bezange-la-Petite.
The right flank of the division was covered by a cavalry screen thrown out by
the 2d Cavalry Group, which General Eddy had attached to the 26th to cover the
gap between the Marne-Rhin Canal and the main forces of the division. South
of the canal the dispositions of the Seventh Army assured a solid anchor on
the right of the Third Army base of operations. The left boundary for the 26th
Division zone ran from Chambrey through ChâteauSalins, thus placing Dieuze
and the eastern Seille in the division sector, as well as the eastern half of
the valley of the Petite Seille which offered a natural route to the town of
Morhange. The zone of advance would require that the commanders of the smaller
units be given a free hand. The 328th Infantry (Col. B. R. Jacobs), on the right
flank of the division, was ordered to make a feint toward Moncourt and Bezange-la-Petite-the
obvious route toward Dieuze and the one taken by the French troops in 1914.
In the center the 101st Infantry (Col. W. T. Scott) was given the mission of
seizing the Seille crossing at Moyenvic. Once across the river the regiment
would attack Hill 310 (Côte St. Jean), about 2,400 yards to the north,
which formed the forwardmost bastion of the 8 1/2-mile plateau-wall covering
Dieuze. The main

[320]

COTE ST. JEAN

[Between 320-321]

assault would be made by the 104th Infantry (Col. D. T. Colley), crossing at
Vic-sur-Seille and advancing east of Château-Salins so as to swing into
the attack on the north side of the Koecking ridge. Two small task forces, made
up of tank destroyers, tanks, and engineers, were added to reinforce the 104th
Infantry.9

On the morning of 8 November the 26th Division attack began, moving with speed and élan much as had been planned.
At 0600 the American gunfire lifted. The 104th Infantry drove into Vic-sur-Seille
and after a short, sharp fight seized some bridges which the outposts of the
361st VG Division had not completely demolished.10
At the same time the 2d Battalion of the 101st Infantry (Lt. Col. B. A. Lyons)
jumped off to take the Seille bridge at Moyenvic, while the 1st Battalion (Lt.
Col. L. M. Kirk) made a diversionary attack toward the east near Xanrey. The
Moyenvic assault gained complete surprise just before dawn the 101st Field Artillery
Battalion opened fire on Hill 310 and then "rolled back a barrage"
through Moyenvic as the 2d Battalion attacked. The dazed German garrison yielded
542 prisoners. Company E, stealing forward from house to house, managed to reach
the bridge over the Seille before the enemy demolition crew could blow it and
crossed the river at once to begin the fight for Hill 310, there joining riflemen
of F Company who had swum the river.

This dominating ground was held by troops of the 953d
Regiment and 361st Engineer Battalion, reinforced by six infantry
howitzers as well as mortars and machine guns. The forward slopes extended for
some fifteen hundred yards, mostly open but dotted here and there with lone
trees and small clumps of woods. Company E moved up the slope to the assault,
but about five hun-

[321]

dred yards from the top of the hill was stopped by the murderous fire delivered
from the German entrenchments on the crest and field guns firing from the village
of Marsal. This fusillade cost E Company its commander and several men. Company
F, following on the left, lost all of its officers. The two companies crowded
together, seeking shelter where they could, and tactical organization soon was
lost. All heavy weapons had been left behind to enable the troops to move quickly
up the slope; sporadic and uncontrolled rifle fire could not pin the enemy down.

About 1100 G Company was committed, but its commander
was hit while crossing the Moyenvic: bridge and the company remained on the
slope below E and F. An hour later two companies of the 3d Battalion arrived
on the slope in accordance with the timetable earlier arranged for an attack
by column of battalions, but the assault could not be started forward again.
Here the -infantry huddled through the afternoon, the clumps of trees where
they sought cover continually swept by cross fire and by German guns on the
crest. As dusk came on the enemy guns blasted the slope with a 20-minute concentration,
causing heavy casualties and still further disorganizing the American assault
force.11 During the night the engineer battalion
of the 559th VG Divisionarrived to reinforce the German hold on the
hill.

Although the initial attack at Hill 310 had failed,
the 26th Infantry Division generally had been successful in the first day of
the new offensive. The 101st and 104th had the Seille bridges securely in hand,
while the demonstration toward Dieuze by the 328th Infantry had pushed the American
lines past Bezange-la-Petite and Moncourt, pinning at least six companies of
the 952d Regimentto the defense of this sector, although with heavy
cost to the attackers.12

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Now the 26th Division began a three-day battle to maneuver
around Hill 310 and pivot onto the Koecking ridge. The weather suddenly had turned
cold; snow and rain fell on 9 November. The 101st Infantry, whose men had shed
even their field jackets in the assault on Hill 310, suffered particularly, and
exposure started to reduce the already weakened rifle strength on the slopes.
Carrying parties could reach the 101st only through a deadly cross fire, and food
had to be sacrificed for ammunition. Cold, hungry, with its ranks thinned and
many of its officers casualties, the 101st tried to envelop the enemy positions
on the crest. On the morning of 9 November the 1st Battalion, which had skillfully
disengaged at Juvrecourt and come up through Moyenvic during the night, attempted
a double envelopment but was stopped in its tracks by the German fire and by the
mud which bogged down its supporting tanks at the base of the hill. The 3d Battalion
finally dispatched two companies in an attack north up the ravine toward Salival,
a little hamlet from which enemy machine gun fire enfiladed the western slope.
At dark Salival was taken and the American infantry passed into the woods beyond,
where German trenches,strongly manned, covered the flank and rear of the
953d positions atop Hill 310

Meanwhile the 104th Infantry, which had moved to flank
Château-Salins in conjunction with the 35th Division attack toward the
Forêt de Château-Salins, fought its way into this key town. On 9
November the troops from the 559th VG Division which were holding Château-Salins
were ejected by the 104th, and the right flank of the regiment was extended
to Morville-le's-Vic in an attempt to put troops on Koecking ridge behind Hill
310. Morville was taken about 1500 by one of the task forces (Task Force A)
attached to the division. Company K, 101st Infantry, cleared the town in a house-to-house
fight, after the lead tank of a platoon from the 761st Tank Battalion was knocked
out by a bazooka, blocking the narrow road into the town and forcing the infantry
to go it alone. Then the little task force continued on toward Hampont, its
progress slowed by mud and antitank fire. Capt. Charles F. Long, the K Company
commander, was killed and half of the infantry company was lost in this fight.

The infantry had borne the burden of the attack on 9
November. Visibility was poor for the supporting gunners. Many of the artillery
liaison planes

[323]

were grounded, some of them standing in water up to their wings. Not only was
the artillery blinded to the point where it could give only limited support, but
the air cooperation which had played such an important role in earlier operations
also was drastically curtailed. The IX Bombardment Division sent 110 bombers to
attack Dieuze, but because of the murky weather only 29 aircraft arrived over
the target.

Nonetheless the left wing of the 26th Division had driven
far enough to clear the way for intervention by the armor and, without realizing
it, had forced a wedge between the left wing of the 559th and the right wing
of the 361st.13 On the night of 9 November
General Eddy ordered CCA, 4th Armored Division, to attack on the following morning.
At 1055 CCA (now commanded by Lt. Col. Creighton W. Abrams) began crossing over
the Seille bridges en route to Hampont. But the appearance of the American tanks
had no immediate effect on the battle still being fought for the possession
of Hill 310.

The 1st Battalion of the 101st Infantry continued to
work its way around Hill 310 on 10 November. About 1610 Colonel Scott gave the
order to assault the ridge behind the hill. This assault was the turning point
in the fight for a foothold on the Koecking plateau. Company C, attacking with
marching fire behind a curtain of shells, succeeded in pushing the Germans off
the ridge northeast of Hill 310. A company of enemy infantry counterattacked
immediately, but C Company beat off the attack, although it was badly mauled;
it then dug in while the German gunners took over the fight and tried to shell
the Americans out of the position. The rest of the 1st Battalion swung around
to the left, into the Bois St. Martin, and reached out to meet the 3d Battalion,
which the day before had wheeled in a wider arc to move onto the Koecking ridge.
The 3d Battalion literally blasted its way out of the thick, dark woods and
on 11 November reached a road junction south of Hampont, where about a hundred
Germans were captured.14 Then the
3d, Battalion turned back on the main ridge line to meet the 1st Battalion.
On the same day, the 1st had finally driven the enemy off Hill 310 and from
this vantage point was now directing the American batteries in counterfire against
the German guns at Marsal and Haraucourt-sur-Seille in the valley below. Firmly
astride the Koecking ridge, the 26th Division could begin the slow and costly
process of fighting step by step to clear the Koecking woods, dis-

[324]

place the enemy on the plateau, and seize the villages in the valleys and on
the slopes. The 26th Division, however, already was understrength. The fight for
Hill 310 alone had cost 478 officers and men, dead and wounded.15

Initial success in the penetration by CCA, 4th Armored
Division, in the Hampont sector offeredsome possibility for maneuver
by the 26th Division's left. On 11 November, therefore, General Paul switched
the 328th Infantry to the center of the division zone-on top of Koecking ridge-sent
the 104th Infantry in on the left to support CCA in the drive toward Rodalbe,
and turned the 101st to the east in an advance along the southern slopes of
the Koecking ridge.

The CCA
Attack along the Valley of the Petite Seille

The 4th Armored Division entered upon the November campaign
as one of the crack armored divisions in the American armies in Europe. It was
now a thoroughly battlewise division, imbued with a high degree of confidence
as a result of the successful tank battles in late September, with relatively
few green replacements, and with nearly a full complement of tanks and other
vehicles. However, the 4th Armored, as well as General Patton's other armored
divisions, was faced with a combination of terrain and weather which promised
very bad tank going and which would inevitably restrict the mobility that had
distinguished American armored formations in preceding months. During the final
phase of the November operation the 4 Armored Division would be handicapped
also by the fact that the right boundary of the Third Army continually was subject
to change, making it necessary for the division constantly to alter its axis
of advance in order to stay within the proper zone, and even, on occasion, to
double back on its tracks.16

General Wood appears to have suggested that his entire
division be used in an attack through the Dieuze defile, along the Moyenvic-Mittersheim
road. General Eddy did not favor this plan because reports from the corps cavalry
indicated that a considerable German force had been gathered to hold the narrow
avenue through the Dieuze bottleneck.17 Furthermore,
Mittersheim, the Dieuze road terminus, lay inside the projected Seventh Army
zone. Gen-

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eral Eddy and his staff considered putting the 4th Armored Division through
north of Château-Salins as the spearhead of the XII Corps advance. But General
Patton's decision to add the 6th Armored Division to the XII Corps for the November
offensive necessitated a regrouping of Eddy's armored strength. In the final plan
the 4th Armored Division was given a "goose egg" on the map, covering
the Morhange area, as an initial objective. Its additional and very tentative
assignment was to continue the offensive in the direction of Sarre-Union and the
Sarre River crossings there. In this plan it was intended that CCA would advance
on the right, pass through the 26th Division, attack northeast along the valley
of the Petite Seille, bypass Morhange, and strike out along the Bénestroff-Francaltroff
road. CCB meanwhile would circle to the north of the Morhange plateau, in order
to free the one good road through the valley of the Petite Seille for CCA, and
capture the vital road center at Morhange. Both combat commands would have to
contend with the lack of hard-surfaced roads in the area. As a result the routes
finally followed consisted of a series of zigzags and cutbacks-the whole further
complicated, as events showed, by the movement of supply and transport for the
infantry divisions on these same roads.

On 9 November CCB (Brig. Gen. H. E. Dager) jumped off
through the 35th Division bridgehead.18 The
following day CCA entered the attack, Colonel Abrams19
passing his lead column (Major Hunter) through the 104th Infantry, which was
fighting the rear guard of the 559th near Morville. Hunter's column moved
slowly, since even the limited enemy resistance encountered at road blocks along
the way caused delay and confusion. Maneuver generally was impossible. Tanks
and trucks that went off the black‑top surface of the main highway had
to be winched out of the quagmire. Hunter's tanks drove through Hampont before
dark on 10 November, but CCA's second column (Lt. Col. Delk M. Oden) was unable
to make a start along the crowded roadway and did not reach Hampont until the
close of the next day.

Hunter's column fought its way toward Conthil on 11 November but ran into serious
difficulty south of the village of Haboudange, where a battalion of the 361st
VG Division and the 111th Flak Battalion had assembled in preparation
for a counterattack to regain contact with the retreating 559th.20

At this point the road passed through a narrow defile formed by the river on
one side and a railroad embankment on the other. As the column entered the defile
hidden German dual purpose guns opened fire. The leading tanks were knocked out,
blocking the road and bringing the column to a halt. Four American officers were
killed, one after another, as they went forward to locate the enemy gun positions.
Finally Hunter turned the column back and continued the move by a side road, bivouacking
that night between Conthil and Rodalbe, while two companies of the 104th Infantry
outposted the latter village. Progress had been slow this day, impeded by the
German antitank guns and minor tank sorties, but Hunter's column had destroyed
fourteen enemy guns and three tanks-although at considerable cost in American
dead and wounded.21

The next morning Oden's column drew abreast of Hunter,
with the 2d Battalion of the 104th Infantry (the regiment was now commanded
by Lt. Col. R. A. Palladino) following in support. Oden turned off the main
road and took Hill 337, southeast of Lidrezing, a commanding height that overlooked
the enemy positions along the path of advance eastward. About noon Hunter's
column reached Rodalbe, which had been occupied the previous evening by K and
L Companies of the 3d Battalion (Lt. Col. H. G. Donaldson), and started north
toward Bermering with the intention of cutting off the troops of the 559th
VG Division now retreating in front of CCB and the 35th Division. However,
the enemy had had enough time to prepare some defense and the road north of
Rodalbe had been thoroughly mined. While the tanks of the 37th Tank Battalion
were trying to maneuver off the road in order to avoid the mines, a number became
hopelessly mired and an easy target for the German guns which opened up from
the north and from the Pfaffenforst woods. Hunter's column was forced to fall
back under the rain of shells and took cover in the Bois de Conthil, about a
thousand yards west of Rodalbe.

The enemy was ready to capitalize on the thin, elongated
outpost line held by the 104th Infantry. On 10 November Balck finally had committed
his armored reserve, the 11th Panzer Division, against the left and center
of the XII Corps, and by 12 November the German tanks were in action along a
12-Mile front. The width of this front made any linear defense impossible and
Wietersheim was forced to rely on a mobile defense, counterattacking wherever

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RODALBE

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opportunity availed. Wietersheim had sent his reconnaissance battalion, ten
Panther tanks, and a battalion of the 110th Panzer Grenadier Regiment to
support the elements of the 559th VG Division in the Rodalbe sector and
restore the connection between the XIII SS Corps and the LXXXIX Corps. This combined
force unleashed a full-scale counterattack on the heels of Hunter's withdrawal.
The American artillery broke up the first attack aimed at Rodalbe on the afternoon
of 12 November; but back to the west the enemy surrounded two companies of the
1st Battalion of the 104th in the neighborhood of Conthil-only to lose his intended
prey when the Americans fought their way out of the trap.

The next morning the Germans launched an infantry attack
against the 3d Battalion troops in Rodalbe but were repulsed just before dusk
the enemy returned to the attack after extremely accurate counterbattery fire
had effectively neutralized the American artillery. The German grenadiers pushed
into the town from all sides and their tanks followed down the Bermering road.
A 28-man patrol from,the 2d Battalion, 104th, succeeded in entering the town
with orders for the 3d Battalion troops to withdraw, but it was too late. The
2d Battalion patrol became engulfed in the fight and only one officer and three
men returned to report the fate of the Rodalbe force. Company 1, the regimental
reserve, by this time reduced to twenty-three men, tried to force a way through
to relieve the trapped companies; but the German tanks now held at the entrances
to Rodalbe. West of the village Panther tanks, mines, and antitank guns barricaded
the highway against an attack by the American tank battalion in the Bois de
Conthil. Actually the mud and the darkness prevented any such intervention.
Inside the village the American infantry took refuge in cellars and attempted
to make a stand, but civilians pointed out their hiding places to the enemy
tankers who blasted them with high explosives at short range. A few Americans
escaped during the night; two officers successfully led thirty men of M Company
back to the American lines. But some two hundred officers and men were lost
in Rodalbe, although a handful of survivors were found in hiding when the village
finally was reentered on the morning of 18 November.22

The reverses suffered on 12 November brought CCA and
the 104th Infantry to a halt. Hunter's force was placed in reserve, while waiting
for new

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tanks to replace those lost by the 37th Tank Battalion, and Oden detached a
task force which recaptured Conthil and opened the main supply route back through
the valley. The 104th Infantry, now badly understrength, took up positions along
the arc made by the Conthil-Lidrezing road. This whole line formed a salient in
which the weakened 104th Infantry "stuck out like a sore thumb," with
CCB and the infantry of the 35th Division on the left flank stepped back along
the railroad line between Morhange and Baronville, and the balance of the 26th
Division advancing slowly and painfully to the right and rear along the Koecking
ridge.

Since the 101st Infantry had been badly cut up during
the fight for Hill 310, General Paul committed the 328th Infantry in the center
of the division zone to carry the main burden of clearing the forest atop the
Koecking ridge. He added the 3d Battalion of the 101st Infantry to the left
flank of the 328th in order to strengthen the attack. The woods ahead were mostly
beech, still covered with leaves that gave the forest a dark and somber aspect
even during the light of the short November days. Dense copses of fir trees
within the forest formed cover for machine gun positions and for snipers. Mines,
booby traps, barbed wire, and concrete pillboxes reinforced the old zigzag trench
positions of World War L Nor had the attackers escaped the mud; even on this
plateau the forest floor had turned into a bog under the constant rain. There
were numerous trails and clearings, but the most important avenues of advance
were a steeply banked east-west road, which traversed the entire length of the
forest, and a lateral road running from Conthil to Dieuze, which had been prepared
by the Germans as a reserve battle position. The enemy force there deployed
to meet the 328th was small, consisting of the 43d Machine Gun Battalion
and the 2d Battalion of the 1119th Regiment (some elements
of the 553d VG Division had been taken over by the 361st VG Division).
Nevertheless, these units were veterans, skilled woods fighters, and well
entrenched on ground with which they were familiar.

The 328th Infantry started east through the forest on
the morning of 12 November and at first encountered little opposition. Shortly
after noon the advancing skirmish line reached an indentation in the woods made
by a large

[331]

clearing around Berange Farm. Here small arms fire from German pillboxes, reinforced
by a very accurate artillery concentration, brought the advance to an abrupt halt
and wounded the regimental commander, Colonel Jacobs. The 2d Battalion, which
had reached another large quadrangular opening in the woods southeast of Berange
Farm, was hit by a sudden hall of mortar fire as it entered the clearing. Many
were killed, including the battalion commander, Maj. R. J. Servatius, who had
taken over the battalion only the night before. The Americans rallied all along
the line, however, and by 1530 the German defenders had been driven back. The
strong point at Berange Farm was cleared after 120 rounds of artillery were poured
in on the farm buildings.

Now the night turned cold and snow fell on the foxholes
in the sodden forest. The infantry had left their blankets behind during the
attack. After the day of severe fighting, exposure also took its toll.

South of the woods the 1st Battalion of the 101st embarked
on an attack to take St. Médard. Here the open ground was swept by cross
fire from the edge of the forest and from the enemy guns at Dieuze, which for
three hours shelled the attack positions of the 101st and inflicted severe losses.
General Paul then called off the 101st advance until the 328th could outflank
the St. Médard position from the north.

On 13 November the German batteries in Dieuze became
even more active, and the 328th, advancing along the east-west road, found itself
under almost constant shelling. Early in the day the advance was slowed down
by fire from automatic weapons sited in the underbrush. Tanks and tank destroyers
advancing along the east-west road gradually blasted the Germans out of the
woods on either side and by nightfall the skirmish line was abreast of the lateral
highway. The progress of the 328th had carried it well ahead of the 101st (-),
still held up at St. Médard and Haraucourt, and the 328th found enemy
pressure increasing on its exposed right flank. The 26th Division was slowing
down, with its rifle companies much below strength and its flanks contained
by a stubborn enemy. The 101st Infantry had just received some 700 replacements,
but it would require time for so many new officers and men to learn their business.
The 328th Infantry had lost many battle casualties in the forest fighting, but
exposure had claimed even more victims: over five hundred men were evacuated
as trench foot and exposure cases in the first four days of the operation. The
104th was even weaker. Its rifle companies averaged about fifty men; in the
1st Battalion some company rosters

[332]

showed only eight to fifteen effectives. Said an officer of the 104th: "All
through this I think we were taking a worse beating than the Jerries. They fought
a delaying action, all the way. When things got too tough they could withdraw
to their next defense line. And when we sat for awhile, they pounded us."

This bitter fighting had been done at high cost to the
enemy as well. The weak German battalions, although reinforced by the 2d
Battalion of the 953d Regiment and a Luftwaffe engineer battalion,
could hold no position for any great length of time. On 14 November CCA made
a sweep through the Bois de Kerperche, the northeastern appendage of the Koecking
woods, and this pressure on the German flank and rear helped pry loose the enemy
grip on the Koecking ridge. The 328th, reinforced by the 3d Battalion, Toist,
put its weight into an attack on 15 and 16 November which drove straight through
to the eastern edge of the woods. Little fighting was involved, for most of
the enemy had withdrawn on the night of 14-15 November. At the same time the
101st Infantry and 2d Cavalry Group pushed toward Dieuze, following the enemy
who were now in full retreat. On 17 November the 26th Infantry Division regrouped,parceled out new batches of replacements to the 104th Infantry, issued dry
clothing, and prepared to attack the next German position.

Meanwhile the enemy undertook a general withdrawal in
front of the 26th Division; concurrently Balck shifted the bulk of the German
artillery, which had played so important a role, northward for use against the
XII Corps left and center. The new enemy line, facing CCA and the 26th Division,
followed the railroad spur between Bénestroff-an important railroad junction
east of Rodalbe-and Dieuze. This position had little to offer in natural capabilities
for defense, except on the north where woods and hills masked Bénestroff.
But solid contact had again been established on the right with the 11th Panzer
Division.

Task Force Oden Attacks Guebling

Colonel Oden's column, CCA, 4th Armored Division, made
the initial attempt to penetrate the new German position between Bénescroff
and Dieuze. Oden's objective was Marimont-lés-Bénestroff, a crossroads
village about one and a half miles southeast of Bénestroff. A passable road
led out of the

[333]

GUEBLING. Circles indicate
wreckage of German tanks.

[334]

Koeckirg woods through Bourgaltroff to Marimont, avoiding the hills and woods
around Bénestroff. This road intersected the German line at the village
of Guébling, about four miles north of Dieuze, which would be the scene
of the first Americanassault.

Leaving Hunter's column to cover the exposed flank and
rear of CCA, Oden's column, divided into two task forces, struck out from an
assembly area near Hill 337 at first light on the morning of 14 November. Task
Force West skirted the Bois de Kerperche and moved by a secondary road southeast
toward Guébling. Task Force McKone took a route directly through the
woods, which had not yet been cleared of the enemy by the advance of the 328th
Infantry, but found the forest road so heavily mined that it was forced to turn
back. About 0845 Major West's force encountered six Panther tanks which had
taken position among the buildings at Kutzeling Farm on the road to Guébling.
These tanks belonged to a detachment of ten Panthers that General Wietersheim
had dispatched from the 15th Panzer Regiment as a roving counterattack
formation. For nearly six hours the German tanks fought a stubborn rear guard
action along the road to Guébling, using the long range of their high-velocity
75-mm. guns to keep the Americans at bay. After much maneuvering at Kutzeling
Farm, West's tanks closed in and disabled three of the Panthers. The rest escaped
under a smoke screen. Later in the day five Panthers made a stand just west
of the railroad, where a corkscrew road out of the forest dipped abruptly toward
Guébling. Again the Panthers showed themselves impervious to long-range
fire from the American M-4's and supporting 105-mm. howitzers, and again maneuver
was used to bring the Panthers within killing range. Fortunately, the German
tanks were so closely hemmed in by their own mine fields as to be virtually
frozen in position. Snow and rain precluded an air strike by the fighter-bombers,
but finally an artillery plane managed to go aloft and adjust fire for the 155-mm.
howitzers of the 101st Field Artillery Battalion. This fire forced the Panthers
to close their hatches, and A Company of the 35th Tank Battalion charged in
on the flanks of the partially blinded Germans. Leading the attack, 1st Lt.
Arthur L. Sell closed within fifty yards of two Panthers and destroyed them,
although two of his crew were killed, two seriously wounded, and his own tank
was knocked out.24 Sell's companion tanks
finished off the remaining Panthers, and as the afternoon drew to a close Task
Force West rolled into Guébling.

[335]

The village itself was quickly secured, but the short November day gave no time
for the armored infantry to take the high ground and the German observation posts
that lay beyond.

Next morning about 0300 three gasoline trucks came into
the village to refuel the task force. The sound of movement inside Guébling
reached the enemy observation posts and brought on the worst shelling the American
troops had yet experienced. The gasoline trucks were destroyed and several tanks
and other vehicles were dam aged. Early in the morning Task Force McKone arrived
to strengthen the detachment in Guébling, and at daylight the 10th Armored
Infantry Battalion was thrown into an attack to clear the high ground beyond
the village. The armored infantry pushed the attack with vigor and determination
but were beaten back by the German gunners. American counterbattery fire failed
to subdue the enemy batteries, the guns shooting blindly into a curtain of snow
and rain.

About noon the 4th Armored Division commander ordered
Colonel Oden to withdraw from the precarious position in Guébling and
return to the original assembly area at Hill 337. Oden evacuated his wounded,
destroyed his damaged vehicles, and gave the order to withdraw. By this time
the German guns had ranged in on the exit road running back to the west and
the Americans were forced to run a 1,500‑yard gauntlet of exploding shells,
with only the cover provided by a smoke screen. Oden's command finally extricated
itself, suffering "severe losses" in the process, and rejoined the
26th Infantry Division. This venture had cost the armor heavily-the 35th Tank
Battalion had only fifteen tanks fit for battle-and on 16 November General Wood
gave orders putting an end to independent attacks by elements of the 4th Armored
Division.25

The Attack
by the XII Corps Center

On the eve of the November offensive the 35th Infantry
Division was deployed with the 134th Infantry (Col. B. B. Miltonberger) on the
right, holding the Forêt de Grémecey, and the 137th Infantry (Col.
W. S. Murray) on the left, aligned along the ridges running from the Forêt
de Grémecey to the 80th Division boundary northwest of Ajoncourt. At
H Hour on 8 November the 320th Infantry (Col. B. A. Byrne) was scheduled to
pass through

[336]

the lines of the 134th Infantry, the latter going into division reserve while
the 320th made the attack. (Map XXVIII) As elsewhere in the XII Corps no detailed
plan had been laid down for the division scheme of maneuver except to set a line
through Laneuveville-en-Saulnois, Fonteny, and the southwestern section of the
Forêt de Château-Salins as the initial objective. Once the 35th Division
had achieved a hold on the terminus of the Morhange plateau and the 26th Division
had broken through the enemy on the right, the entrance to the valley of Petite
Seille would be open for a thrust by CCA, 4th Armored Division. CCB, assigned
to work with the 35th Division, was to pass through the attacking infantry as
quickly as possible and advance toward Morhange, while the infantry followed to
take over successive objectives softened up by the armor. General Eddy also foresaw
some possibility that the 6th Armored Division, teamed with the 80th Division
on the left, might find a weak spot in the German line and ordered General Baade
to put his reserve regiment in trucks, prepared to exploit a break‑through
by either the 6th Armored Division or CCB of the 4th.

The rain had been pouring down steadily for five hours
by 0600 (H Hour) of 8 November, flooding the roads and footpaths along which
the 320th Infantry was moving to its line of departure. Before day broke and
the line of departure was reached, the assault troops on the right already were
tired and gaps appeared in the ranks as stragglers fell behind. However, most
of the formations slated to make the attack were able to jump off close to schedule.

The 137th Infantry, on the division left, had as its mission to establish a
bridgehead across the Osson Creek and make a quick jab at Laneuveville, some
four miles distant, in order to cut the main highway between Château-Salins
and Metz. In September, when the 35th Division had fought along its banks, the
Osson had been no more than a small stream. Now the flood waters of the sluggish
Seille had backed into the creek, increasing its width to about fifty yards
and making it a real barrier. The engineers had prepared for this obstacle,
however, and by 1040 the attackers had put a prefabricated bridge across south
of Jallaucourt. Two hours later the 1st Battalion of the 137th, supported by
tanks of the 737th Tank Battalion, was in the shell-torn village itself. The
enemy soldiers froze in their places at sight of the tanks and surrendered.
A second bridge opened the road into Malaucourt, and shortly after 1600 two
companies of the 2d Battalion, supported by tanks, took the village. By midnight
the 137th Infantry was in position on the ground rising east of the two villages,
having taken some two hundred prisoners (mostly from

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the 1125th Regiment of the 559th VG Division) at a cost of eighty-two
casualties.26

On the right wing of the 35th Division the 320th Infantry
attacked to secure a foothold in the Forêt de Château-Salins on
the Morhange plateau, in conjunction with the 26th Division attempt to gain
a position on the Koeckingridge. The only road that led from the 35th Division
area into the Forêt de Château-Salins was blocked by the German
possession of Fresnes, about 1,200 yards north of the 35th Division lines. Until
Fresnes was taken and the road eastward cleared, no tanks could be used in support
of the 320th Infantry attack on the forest, and supply had to be made by carrying
parties wallowing up to their knees in mud. Apparently the Americans had hoped
to clear Fresnes by a quick stroke and thus open the vital roadway in time to
send the tanks into the forest edge in conjunction with the infantry assault.
But the German hold on Fresnes was far more tenacious than on the villages in
front of the 137th Infantry. Fresnes had been an important supply and communications
center for the enemy in earlier operations and had received constant and heavy
shelling by the American artillery. As a result the German garrison, estimated
to be a battalion, had dug in deep and was little disturbed by the heavy shelling
on the morning of 8 November. When the fire lifted, the garrison rose to meet
the American attack. The 3d Battalion, 320th Infantry, and a company of tanks
succeeded in entering Fresnes after a bitter fight; but all during the night
and for part of the next day the German defenders fought on, barring the road
into the forest.

While the 3d Battalion hammered at Fresnes, the 2d Battalion,
on its right, began a frontal attack toward the western extension of the Forêt
de Château-Salins known as the Bois d'Amélécourt-only to
suffer a series of costly mishaps in this first day of the offensive. The assault
troops of the 320th Infantry had had to pass through the lines of the 134th
Infantry during the night of 7-8 November. This move, difficult enough under
favorable conditions, was further complicated by the seas of mud, and the two
companies leading the attack arrived on the line of departure at the northeast
edge of the Forêt de Grémecey a half hour late, their rifle strength
already depleted by stragglers who had fallen out along the way or been lost
in the woods.27

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When the 2d Battalion finally moved into the attack,
daylight already had come and the smoke screen which had been fired for ten minutes
before daylight was beginning to dissipate‑leaving little cover as the companies
started to cross some two thousand yards of muddy ground. The Bois d'Amélécourt
was held by a battalion of the 1127th Regiment, whose northern flank in
turnwas covered by a battalionfrom the I125th Regiment. The
Germans in the woods held a strong position on the higher ground and were supported
by three infantry howitzers that had been wheeled forward to the tree line so
as to cover the open ground over which the Americans had to attack. In addition
the highway passing in front of the woods had been wired and mined as a forward
defense position, and was further strengthened with machine guns sited in enfilade.

The Americans crossed the first few hundred yards of
open ground without drawing much fire. Company G, on the left, reached the enemy
outpost line, which here followed a railroad embankment, and took some forty
Germans from their foxholes. Beyond the railroad F Company drew abreast of G
Company and the two started toward the woods. When the first assault wave reached
the wire along the highway the guns and mortars in the woods opened fire, while
the German machine guns swept the American right flank. Under this hot fire
Company F fell back, until rallied by a battalion staff officer. Company E,
the reserve, attempted to intervene but also was repelled by the German fire.
Company G, somewhat protected by a slight rise, reached the edge of the woods
and hurriedly dug in. During the afternoon the two rifle companies still outside
the woods made a second effort. In the midst of the assault the American batteries
firing smoke in support of the infantry ran out of smoke shells, and as the
smoke screen blew away a fusillade poured in from the German lines. Again the
attack was brought to a halt and the two companies withdrew to the cover of
the railroad embankment. The 2d Battalion had suffered severely but was saved
from complete destruction by the mud, which absorbed shell fragments and in
which the German shells, fitted with impact fuses, often failed to explode.

In the late afternoon Colonel Byrne
ordered the 1st Battalion of the 320th Infantry up from reserve to close the
gap between Fresnes and the Bois d'Ameélécourt. Mine fields slowed
down the battalion, however, and when darkness fell it halted at the Fresnes
road. During the night of 8-9 November the 3d Battalion mopped up the enemy
still holding on around Fresnes. The

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2d Battalion sent carrying parties back to evacuate the wounded and bring up
ammunition, which had run low during the fire fight in the afternoon. This
still further depleted the rifle strength opposite the enemy; indeed it is
characteristic of most of the woods fighting in November that a considerable
part of the roster of every unit had to be detached from the fire line to
keep communications to the rear functioning over terrain where vehicles could
not be used.

When morning arrived on the second day of the battle
the engineers cleared the mines from the road east of Fresnes and the 1st Battalion
marched to the aid of the 2d Battalion. Company C, 737th Tank Battalion, which
had played a major role at Fresnes, followed behind the infantry, although it
was seriously crippled and had lost six of its tanks in the fight for the village.
Meanwhile the 2d Battalion resumed the attack on the Bois d'Amélécourt.
Two of the troublesome German howitzers had been knocked out by the American
artillery, but the enemy machine guns still were in position to rake the American
flank. Once again the attack was broken by the withering fire and this time
the dispirited infantry could not be induced to return to the assault. About
1000 the tanks from Fresnes arrived on the scene. Their appearance abruptly
shifted the balance against the enemy. The tank gunners quickly destroyed the
German machine gun nests and drove the enemy back from the edge of the woods,
putting the 1st and 2d Battalions inside the tree line.28

Once inside the woods, however, the infantry found the
enemy cleverly entrenched and determined to fight for every yard of ground.
Barbed wire, prepared lanes of fire, dugouts roofed with concrete and sod, foxholes,
and breastworks improvised from corded wood provided an intricate net of field
works facing the attackers wherever they turned. Once again the German grenadier
proved himself an experienced and resourceful woods fighter, clinging obstinately
to each position and closing to fire rifle grenades and even antitank grenades
point blank at the American infantry. Significant of the stubbornness with which
the defense was conducted, the enemy left more dead than prisoners in American
hands.29

On the north flank of the 35th Division the rapid advance made by the 137th
on the first day of the attack offered an opening for armored exploita-

[340]

WOUNDED SOLDIER HELPED TO AID
STATION, after fighting in the Forêt & de Grémecey.

[341]

tion. General Eddy committed CCB, 4th Armored Division, on the morningof
9 November, sending it wheeling north of the Forêt de Château-Salins
in a drive toward Morhange. General Dager, CCB commander, followed the usual practice
of the division and attacked in two columns: the left column (Maj. Thomas G. Churchill)
passed through the 137th near Malaucourt; the right column (Lt. Col. Alfred A.
Mayback) struck into the open near Jallaucourt. The enemy had not recovered from
the brusque attack made by the American infantry on the previous day and could
present little in the way of a co-ordinated defense against the armored columns.
Churchill's column was able to stick to the highway, though five medium tanks
were lost to mines, and reached the village of Hannocourt. Here the enemy had
emplaced a few antitank pieces to cover the road, but the 510th Squadron of the
XIX TAC, flying cover over the American tanks, blasted the German gun positions
with fragmentation bombs and napalm. Churchill"s advance uncovered the southern
flank of the 48th Division position at Delme Ridge-directly in front of
the 80th Infantry Division-and enabled the 137th Infantry to capture the village
of Delme, an attack made in conjunction with the 80th Division assault against
the ridge itself.30

On the right Colonel Mayback's column met much
stiffer opposition but moved speedily ahead despite concrete road blocks, antitank
gunfire, and the necessity of having to halt and clear German foxhole chains
alongside the road. At first the troops of the 559th were slow to react
to the appearance of the American armor deep inside their lines. At Oriocourt
the 1st Battalion of the 137th Infantry, following close behind the tanks, bagged
a battery of field guns and 150 prisoners. At Laneuveville the American tanks
overran the enemy guns before the startled crews could get the covers off their
pieces. The supporting infantry captured 445 prisoners with only slight losses
in their own ranks. While the infantry mopped up in Laneuveville Mayback's armored
column moved east toward the village of Fonteny. In midafternoon the American
advance guard had just begun to descend the road into the draw where the village
lay when suddenly enemy guns opened fire from positions on a hill northeast
of Fonteny and from the Forêt de Châfteau-Salins. The Americans
had run into a hornet's nest: this was a prepared secondary position which had
been heavily armed in early November by guns from the 9th

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TASK FORCE CHURCHILL CROSSING THE SEILLE RIVER

Flak Division.31 Having brought the
column to a halt the enemy struck with a detachment of tanks against the American
flank. A lieutenant and a small party of armored infantrymen equipped with bazookas
drove off the German tanks, though nearly all of the little detachment were
killed or wounded during the fight.

Meanwhile, Colonel Mayback sent forward C Company, 37th
Tank Battalion, to help the advance guard. The main body of the column had been
somewhat protected by a small rise of ground, but the moment the company of
medium tanks crossed the sky line three tanks were knocked out. When C Company
attempted to deploy off the road the tanks bogged down, presenting more or less
a series of sitting targets for the German gunners. Nevertheless C Company inflicted
considerable damage on the German batteries (it was later estimated that the
tanks had put thirty German guns out of action) and continued the duel until
the ammunition in the tanks was expended. As night

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fell Colonel Mayback ordered his forwardelements to withdraw behind the ground mask southwest of the village. The American
losses, mostly sustained in the fight outside of Fonteny, had been heavy: fifteen
tanks, ten half‑tracks, and three assault guns. But the column had made
an advance of some four miles into enemy territory and had broken a way for the
infantry.32

When word of the fight at Fonteny reached General Dager the CCB commander ordered Mayback to hold up his advance and wait
for reinforcements from Churchill's column, bivouacked near Hannocourt.
The marching American infantry was still about five miles behind the armored
columns. During the night of 9-10 November enemy infantry and tanks
from the 11th Panzer Division
cut in behind Churchill's force and occupied the village
of Viviers, thus severing the only usable road to Fonteny. This German force
was fairly strong, including troops of the 43d Fortress Battalion and
the 110th Panzer Grenadier
Regiment, as well as a large number
of self-propelled guns. The fight to clear the enemy from Viviers on 10 November
developed into a series of confused actions. The 22d Armored Field Artillery
Battalion, located on Hill 260, halfway between Viviers and Hannocourt, entered
upon an old­fashioned artillery duel with some batteries of the 401st Volks
Artillery Corps to the north which were harassing Churchill's column. The
American tanks attempted to open the road to Viviers but were forced off the
highway by the enemy antitank guns and mired down in the boggy fields.33
The 2d Battalion, 137th Infantry, which had come up from the west, then carried
the attack into Viviers in a battle that continued through the entire afternoon.34
At dusk the infantry secured a firm hold on the village, after a heavy shelling
had somewhat softened up the enemy garrison. More than one hundred dead Germans
were counted in the streets and houses and some fifty surrendered, but a small
and desperate rear guard detachment held on in the burning village through most
of the night.

The 35th Division fought a punishing battle all along
its front on 10 November and only slowly eased the enemy pressure on CCB. While
the 2d Battalion of the 137th Infantry attacked at Viviers, other elements of
the regiment pushed past Laneuveville and joined Mayback's column west of

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Fonteny, there extending the flanks of the 51st Armored Infantry Battalion which
had been thrown out as a screen for the armor. During the day the Germans directed
one small tank attack against Mayback's command, but this was repelled handily
by the American tank destroyers.

In the center of the division line the 320th Infantry
passed from the Bois d'Amélécourt and continued the fight in the
mazes of the Forêt de Château-Salins, its men soaked to the skin
and harassed day and night by enemy detachments that slipped through the woods
like Indians in raids on the flanks and rear. German reinforcements were coming
in from the 1126th Regiment and the 110th Panzer Grenadier Regiment,
bringing the numbers on each side to something approaching equality. The
3d Battalion relieved the 2d Battalion, as the fighting strength of the latter
diminished, but even when placed in reserve the tired American infantry had
to battle heavily armed German patrols sneaking through the fragmentary front
lines. General Baade had put the 134th Infantry in on the right of the 320th
Infantry, on 9 November, with the mission of clearing the eastern edge of the
Forêt de Château-Salins and covering the division's flank. Here,
too, the Germans stubbornly contested the ground; by the night of 10 November
the regiment still was short of Gerbécourt, only a third of the way alongside
the forest.

Resistance in the Forêt de Château-Salins
began to slacken on 11 November, and during the afternoon the 559th commenced
a general withdrawal toward a line between Frémery and Dalhain, giving
the fighter-bombers an appetizing target as the columns of infantry and horse-drawn
artillery debouched into the open. The 365th Squadron destroyed fifty-eight
guns and vehicles in a single sweep. No continuous front line remained-only
German rear guard detachments holding out grimly at points of vantage. Their
stand, coupled with the miserable conditions of the roads and early darkness,
made the 35th Division advance a slow affair. Both the 320th and 134th Infantry
made some progress, but both were beset by the difficulty of getting food and
ammunition forward through the rivers of mud.35

On the left of the division, resistance briefly increased
in front of CCB and the 137th Infantry, and shellfire poured in as the German
artillery sought to halt the American advance long enough to permit the troops
in the Forêt de Château-Salins to escape. Early in the day a counterattack
was thrown at

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Churchill's force, which had been ordered to continue toward Morhange, only
to be dispersed by the armored artillery. During the day the column destroyed
fourteen antitank guns yet was unable to fight its way clear of the Bois de Serres,
through which the main roads to Morhange passed. The Mayback column made an attempt
to drive straight through Fonteny but was beaten back by direct antitank fire
at close range. Meanwhile the 1st Battalion, 137th Infantry, and a tank company
had come up to aid in the assault and another attempt was made with an attack
in deployed order. Shortly after noon the Americans entered the little village,
and the fight continued from house to house all during the afternoon and through
most of the night. During this action Colonel Mayback and Lt. Col. William L.
Shade, commanding officer of the 253d Field Artillery Battalion, were mortally
wounded; command of the column passed to Maj. Harry R. Van Arnam. In the early
morning hours Of 12 November the 11th Panzerdetachment evacuated Fonteny,
saving most of its guns and infantry but abandoning three Panther tanks.

The 3d Battalion of the 137th Infantry came up to relieve
the 1st Battalion in Fonteny, the 2d Battalion of the regiment seized Faxe-thus
reopening contact between the north and south columns of CCB-and the armor and
infantry struck east to secure the entrance into the valley of the Nied Française,
through which passed the route to Morhange. Before the day ended the American
tanks reached the village of Oron, there seizing a bridge across the Nied Française.
The retreating Germans had offered little coordinated or effective resistance,
and over six hundred surrendered to CCB and the 137th Infantry.36

The German withdrawal on 12 November placed the 35th
Division and CCB in position for a final drive against the outpost villages
guarding the western approaches to Morhange. In the center the 320th Infantry
finally cleared the Forêt de Château-Salins. The regiment was placed
in reserve and the shivering, weary men given fresh clothing‑the first
dry apparel for most of them since the fight for the forest began. On the east
flank the 134th Infantry advanced almost without opposition. General Baade finally
ordered the regiment to a halt at Bellange, about three and a half miles southwest
of Morhange, so that warm clothing and dry socks could be issued to the attacking
troops. The week-long rain had come to an end, but this brought no relief to
the soldier, for bitter cold followed. The XII Corps commander ordered

[346]

PRISONERS BEING MARCHED TO THE
REAR, after surrendering to Combat Command B on 12 November.

[347]

that overshoes be returned to the troops-they had been discarded at the beginning
of the offensive37 -and extra blankets and heavy
clothing were issued as quickly as they could be brought into the front lines.
Winter warfare was about to begin.

The Drive
toward Morhange

Any military map of Lorraine will show the importance
of Morhange as a road center. In 1914 the control of Morhange gave the German
armies a sally port from which to debouch into the Seille Basin. In November
1944 the forces driving northeastward out of the Seille Basin were forced to
funnel, at least in part, through Morhange. But a map will reflect the difficulty
of reaching Morhange in force except by an attack along the chain of ridges
leading in from the west.

The drive toward Morhange began on 13 November. On the
left CCB moved east along the valley of the Nied Française with the 137th
Infantry close behind. Van Arnam's column, south of the river, though advancing
slowly in the face of successive mine fields and blown bridges, at dark was
astride a ridge north of Achain and less than three miles from Morhange. Churchill's
column, which had crossed to the north-bank of the Nied Française at
Oron, advanced by road as far as Villers-sur-Nied. At this point the enemy had
mined the highway so thoroughly that Churchill decided to take his command cross
country. In the course of this maneuvering Company A of the 8th Tank Battalion
worked its way to the rear of some German batteries covering the Villers-sur-Nied-Marthille
road. The light tanks of the battalion pointed the target with tracer bullets;
then the company of mediums rolled over the gun positions with its own pieces
blazing. Taken completely by surprise the German crews were unable to bring
their guns to bear, and in one blow the American tankers destroyed seven 88-mm.
and eleven 75-mm. field pieces. Churchill's column laagered on a ridge north
of Marthille not far from Van Arnam's column during the night of 13-14 November,
and the engineers undertook the difficult and dangerous task of clearing the
mines from the road to the rear.

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The next day CCBand a battalion of the 1137th attacked
the villages of Destry and Baronville, preparatory to flanking Morhange from the
north in conjunction with a drive from the south and west by the bulk of the 35th
Infantry Division. The attack was successful, although the enemy fought back doggedly
until well into the night. Fresh German replacements, just arrived from Poland,
here had entered the 559th VG Division line with orders to hold until the
last man. The journals of the American troops who opposed them at Destry and Baronville
all speak of "extremely bitter resistance ending only with the death or capture
of the German grenadiers.

However, the plans
for CCBto close on Morhange from the north and continue the drive to Sarreguemines
were doomed by the weather, rather than enemy resistance. The rains resumed,
the armor was road‑bound, and the left flank of CCB was left hanging in
the air along the Metz-Sarrebourg railroad. While engaged in futile attempts
to maneuver off the roads CCB received orders from XII Corps headquarters on
115 November to hold up the attack. Two days later CCB moved south to join the
rest of the 4th Armored Division in a drive through the Dieuze gap, thus ending
seven days of what the combat command would later recall as a "heart break
action."38

The pressure applied in the Morhange sector by the American
armor had helped to render the new German defensive line untenable and may have
weakened the enemy will to resist. But the final phase of the operation, that
is, the frontal attack by the 35th Division in the direction of Morhange, cost
the American infantry heavily. After a night of snow and bitter cold the 134th
Infantry moved out on the morning Of 13 November to clear the natural causeway
along which the Château-Salins-Baronville road led into Morhange. The
3d Battalion, on the left, was ordered to take the section of the ridge line
known as the Rougemont (later known to the Americans as "Bloody Hill")
and then drive astride the highway to the northeast. The 3d Battalion was roughly
handled, losing its commander, Lt. Col. Warren C. Wood, when he was wounded
and suffering severe losses during the advance across the valley floor and up
the slopes of Bloody Hill, an advance in which each rifleman was outlined as
a perfect target against the fresh white snow. Nonetheless the

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battalion took the objective and wheeled toward Morhange, bypassing Achain where
the 2d Battalion was heavily engaged.

The 2d Battalion had jumped off at Bellange on the morning
of 13 November and there begun an advance up the open valley with Achain as
its objective. Three rifle companies took part in the 1,800-yard advance, under
heavy fire from guns on Bloody Hill. The American casualties were severe; one
company lost every officer before Achain was reached. About noon the assault
wave hit the edge of the village, beginning a bitter fight that lasted for nearly
ten hours. The American attack was pushed relentlessly, and ultimately the last
of the German defenders were killed, captured, or driven in flight from the
village. During the engagement Sgt. Junior J. Spurrier of Company G distinguished
himself by making a lone sortie west of Achain while his comrades attacked east
of the village. In the course of this one-man advance, Sergeant Spurrier killed
twenty-five of the enemy and captured twenty-two. He subsequently was awarded
the Congressional Medal of Honor. A total of 150 Germans surrendered in Achain,
but the advance up the valley and the fight for the village cost the 2d Battalion
106 officers and men.

At Morhange the enemy troops-mostly from the 1127th
Regiment found their position increasingly precarious as the American infantry
and armor closed in on 14 November.39 As early
as 11 November the American 155-mm. guns and 8-inch howitzers had brought the
town under fire, and on 14 November the 240-mm. howitzers joined the bombardment.
During the night of the 14th, the 105-mm. howitzers were brought into play;
one battalion (the 216th Field Artillery) fired 999 rounds into the town. On
the morning of 15 November the 1127th withdrew from the battered town
and filed toward the northeast, blowing bridges and strewing mines in its wake.

In midafternoon the 35th Division reached the Metz-Sarrebourg
railway. Here General Baade halted his troops to await new orders. The division
had advanced twelve miles in eight days of hard fighting and had captured or
destroyed fifty-three pieces of artillery-of 75-mm. caliber or larger-as well
as twenty-six vehicles. The 137th Infantry, which had been in position to bag
the most Germans, had taken over one thousand prisoners.40
The 35th was given little rest, however, for on 17 November the corps commander
ordered a resumption of the advance toward the Sarre River.

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The XII
Corps Advance on the Left

At the beginning of the November offensive the 80th
Infantry Division front extended from the XX Corps boundary line, west of Cheminot,
southeast to Chenicourt, where the 35th Infantry Division sector began. The
left and center of the 80th was posted along the west bank of the Seille River.
But on the right wing the Germans still retained a foothold on the American
side of the Seille in the re‑entrant formed by a loop in the river north
of Létricourt. (Map XXIX)

The regiments of the 80th Division, all committed on
8 November, were drawn up with the 3117th, 318th, and 319th Infantry left to
right. The main formations of the enemy force opposite the 80th Division were
from the 48th Division, whose zone ran from north of Malaucourt to north
of Eply. In addition the left flank of the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division
abutted on the 48th Division, with the result that some elements
of the 38th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment faced the 317th Infantry.41

The 80th Division position placed it on the shortest
and most direct axis for a drive toward the important communications center
at Faulquemont: (Falkenberg, as it is called in the XII Corps Field Orders).
Therefore, the XII Corps plans for the 8 November offensive provided that the
80th Division should establish a bridgehead over the Seille, through which the
6th Armored Division could be passed, and that the armor should then attack
toward Faulquemont. Once across the Seille River the 80th Division was scheduled
to follow the armor, relieving the 6th Armored Division somewhere in the vicinity
of Faulquemont.

The terrain in front of the 80th Division was somewhat
less difficult than that in the center and on the right of the XII Corps zone
of advance. The road system running northeast to Faulquemont was adequate, though
the main highway-via Luppy and Han-sur-Nied-lay well off center in the division
zone and confusingly close to the XX Corps boundary. However, the 80th Division
did face a number of terrain obstacles, made more difficult than usual by the
November rains and the mud. The first barrier was the Seille River, swollen
grossly out of its ordinary channel. Next, the Delme Ridge rose to command the
Seille Basin, covering so wide a portion of the 80th Division front that direct
assault could hardly be avoided-although the ridge

[351]

could be turned from the35th Division zone or by a narrow thrust along
the XII Corps north boundary. Beyond lay the Nied Française, another flooded
watercourse, which angled across the axis of advance. Southwest of Faulquemont
this channel divided into the Nied Française proper and the Rotte; the
latter stream then turned into an east-west channel. Of all these natural defense
lines the Delme Ridge was believed by American intelligence to be most heavily
fortified; for a month past 80th Division observers had watched the Germans busily
digging and wiring on the heights.

At 0500 on 8 November the XII Corps artillery began
firing in preparation for the Seille crossing, and shortly before H Hour the
divisional artillery, tanks, tank destroyers, and infantry cannon companies
joined to swell the barrage from positions about 3,000 yards west of the river.42
At 0600 the main attack echelons of the three regiments jumped off and the battle
for a bridgehead east of the Seille was begun.

The 319th Infantry, on the right, used its 1st Battalion to clear out the Seille loop between Abaucourt and Létricourt,
and to take a crossing at Aulnois-sur-Seille-which was in American hands two
hours after the attack began. In the center the 318th Infantry experienced some
delay in crossing the river. Infantry footbridges, thrown across the Seille
by the engineers early in the morning, were washed away in the flood waters
and the bulk of the assault echelons had to be ferried across in assault boats.
Once across the river the two leading battalions swung either side of Nomény,
meeting sharp mortar fire as soon as they began the advance away from the river.43
The 2d Battalion, on the left, sent troops into Nomény, which the Germans
had fortified as a strong point at the river line. These elements of the battalion
immediately became engaged in a hot fight which continued on into the following
morning and cost over a hundred American casualties.44
By that time supporting tanks were moving forward over heavy bridges and a company
of mediums rolled into Nomény, ending the struggle for the village. The
317th Infantry, making the attack on the left on 8 November, put two bat­

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talions across the Seille by footbridges, rubber assault craft, and fording.
Using tactics similar to those employed at Nomény, the 1st and 3d circled Eply on the north and south, leaving the 2d Battalion,
which was crossed behind the rest of the regiment, to clear the village itself.45

Late in the afternoon of 8 November the enemy began
to react with artillery and small local counterattacks, this activity becoming
most pronounced in front of the 317th Infantry whose advance had struck hard
against the seam between the 38th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment and the
48th Division. North of Eply field artillery brought up from the 17th
SS caught a company of the 317th just as it was digging in on the forward
slope of Hill 237. During the shelling the company suffered many casualties
and all of the company officers were killed. But the 317th got its revenge when,
just at dusk, a company of German infantry-apparently moving to attack the 3d
Battalion-unwittingly marched straight across the front of the 2d Battalion
and was cut to pieces.

At dark on this first day the 80th Division had ten
bridges across the Seille River and a sure footing on the enemy bank. Tactical
surprise had been achieved, the enemy communications destroyed, and in the first
hours of the attack the German artillery had been successfully neutralized.
The American advance had carried far enough east of the Seille to roll back
the south flank of the 38th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment in the direction
of Metz and had cut through the forward lines of the 48th Division. At
Nomény the entrapped 1st Battalion, 126th Regiment, was destroyed
during the night of 8 November. The 1431st Fortress Battalion, which
had held the sector north and west of Nomény, also was overrun and almost
completely erased.

On the morning of 9 November the 48th Division rallied
on Delme Ridge to stop the advance of the 80th Division. Delme Ridge was naturally
a strong position and loomed large as a tactical problem for the Americans.
General McBride's first intention had been to make a hook to the north end of
the ridge with his center regiment, the 318th, which then would drive from north
to south along the crest of the ridge and meet the 319th on the southern tip.
The progress of the 318th on 9 November was impeded by the mud; as the morning
advanced it appeared unlikely that the regiment would reach

[353]

its objective. McBride decided to release his division reserve, a battalion
of the 319th, and throw the right regiment into a frontal attack against the enemy
defending the ridge. The 319th Infantry, supported by tanks that had crossed the
river during the night and early morning, stormed up the heights, through little
villages and terraced vineyards, sweeping past mine fields and over gun
positions in which two battalions of captured Russian artillery had been emplaced.
Fortunately the slopes were dry and provided good flotation for the American tanks,
which easily disposed of the dug-in batteries.46
The German mines, however, inflicted numerous casualties among the troops that
moved on foot.

On the left the 317th Infantry took very heavy losses.
Here the Germans made a stubborn stand and threw in the 1st Battalion of
the 37th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment to reinforce the line on the high
ground north of Delme Ridge proper. In addition the 317th was forced to attack
with its northern flank exposed, since the 5th Infantry Division of the XX Corps
had not yet come up abreast of the XII Corps advance. During the day the 1st
Battalion, 317th, advanced in front of the other battalions by a matter of some
three thousand yards and ran into bitter fire from its front and flanks. By
the following morning each of the three rifle companies in the 1st Battalion
had been reduced to an average strength of fifty-five men. The 3d Battalion
also was cut up badly during this attack. Nevertheless the 317th Infantry succeeded
in taking all but the northern tip of the ridge line to its front.

Late in the afternoon of 9 November the 357th Squadron
of the XIX TAC intervened in the battle at Delme Ridge and struck at the enemy
on the reverse slopes and in the woods to the east. Meanwhile the three American
battalions of medium and heavy artillery which had earlier pounded the enemy
works on the ridge lifted their fire and began to beat the German rear areas.
During the evening the 137th Infantry, attacking from the 35th Division zone,
took the village of Delme, unhinging the German left and spiking down the right
flank of the 80th Division advance. By this time the 5th Infantry Division had
come up on the left, and the 80th was in position to mop up the last of the
Delme line and continue the attack. The second day of the offensive had been
highly successful. Most of the Delme Ridge position was in American hands. The
48th Division had been badly beaten, as German reports show,

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and more than a thousand prisoners had been taken by the 80th Infantry Division.

The successes won by the infantry had made room for
the armor, and while the 80th Division still was fighting at Delme Ridge, on
9 November, General Eddy ordered General Grow and his 6th Armored Division into
the attack. The division was a veteran formation, at full strength, and highly
confident as the result of its earlier successes in the Brittany peninsula and
east of Nancy.47 In late October
some thought had been given to a maneuver in which both the 4th and 6th Armored
Divisions would drive between Château-Salins and Delme Ridge. General
Wood and General Grow had viewed this proposal with a skeptical eye. Later the
XII Corps commander had considered using the 6th Armored to turn the north flank
of the Delme Ridge position. But General Patton's decision for a rapid advance
to cross the Sarre River and breach the West Wall had widened the scope of the
6th Armored mission. In the final plan‑the result of much careful work
in the corps and division headquarters‑the 6th Armored was to attack from
the 80th Division lines with two combat commands abreast, each with two columns,
crossing the Nied River on a ten‑mile front. The objective given the 6th
Armored Division in the XII Corps plan was the high ground overlooking the town
of Faulquemont. CCA, now commanded by Col. John L. Hines (Colonel Hanson had
been injured), would have the mission of seizing the hills southeast of Faulquemont,
in the vicinity of Guessling-Hémering; the objective for CCB (Col. G.
W. Read) was the rising ground northeast of the city.

About noon on 9 November Combat Team Brindle (86th
Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron Mechanized (-) plus D Company, 15th Tank Battalion)
jumped off at the head of CCB and succeeded, though with great difficulty, in
crossing its light equipment at Port-sur-Seille. Moving on side roads the cavalry
advanced to a point west of Alémont, where German antitank guns brought
the thin-skinned light tanks and armored cars to a halt. Here again the autumn
mud nullified a tactical plan based on speed and surprise. The lightweight armored
vehicles of the cavalry combat team had less flotation than the medium tanks
and could neither deploy off the road nor readily bypass the guns and road blocks
which the German defenders had sited for

[355]

RIVER CROSSING AT PORT-SUR-SEILLE. The 15th Tank Battalion
crosses its light equipment with considerable difficulty.

[356]

a defense in depth. A lightning cavalry dash was no longer possible. The 6th
Armored Division would have to fight its way to and across the barrier of the
Nied Française.48

While Lt. Col. Harry C. Brindle's cavalry probed toward
the east, elements of the 318th Infantry and armored infantry from the 6th Armored
mopped up the rear guard enemy detachments in the neighborhood of Nomeny. Nomény
and Port-sur-Seille at this moment offered the only bridge sites suitable to
crossing heavy armor; approaches to the other bridges in the 80th Division zone
were under water and could not be used by medium tanks or artillery. Before
the day ended both CCA and CCB had advance guards across the Seille. The remainder
of the division passed over the river on 10 November, and the two combat commands
struck out toward the Nied Française.

Meanwhile the 80th Infantry Division advanced rapidly on 10 November, working closely with the armor and driving nearly eight
miles eastward despite mud and congested roads. The 48th Division, decimated
as it was, made its withdrawal toward the next line of defense at the Nied in
surprisingly good order. General Balck had no troops to throw in for a counterattack.
His armored reserve, the 11th Panzer Division, had been dispatched from
the Morhange assembly area on 9 November to make a counterattack and restore
the lines of the 48th. American fighter-bombers had checked this move
before the German columns could engage in force in the Delme sector. Subsequently
most of the 11th Panzer was diverted southward to meet the attack by
the American 4th Armored.49 During
the day, however, the 318th Infantry encountered a few troops from the 951st
Regiment, 361st VG Division, which had been rushed north by bus and thrown
into the line piecemeal to fight a holding action. Although the 80th Division
made a very substantial advance on 10 November, the total number of prisoners
taken was only about 350.

The 6th Armored Division attack was complicated by the
fact that there was only one hard‑surface road in the division zone. It
ran from Pont-à-

[357]

Mousson, via Vigny and Luppy, to the Nied Française crossing at Han-sur-Nied.
Although CCB had the initial running rights on the Han-sur-Nied road, both combat
commands finally would swing astride the road, entering at different points. Furthermore
the 5th Infantry Division also had to use this road in order to support the advance
on the right wing of the XX Corps. That this congestion did not act to halt the
armor was a tribute to excellent-albeit unplanned-traffic control.

CCB, moving on the left, and CCA, on the right, swung
obliquely to the northeast so as to get astride the Han-sur-Nied road at different
points. Mud and mines on the side roads and trails provided the chief barriers
during the early hours of this move. However, when the leading combat team of
CCA reached Luppy a detachment from the 11th Panzer Division contested
the possession of the highway and the combat team spent the remainder of the
day clearing the village. Back to the west, CCB fought its way onto the road
at Vigny and Buchy. Again the enemy used the cover offered by the villages to
make a fight for the road, but CCB, aided by the 2d Infantry which had come
up from the XX Corps, cut off and captured both villages. Such German rear guard
tactics would often delay the American advance during November; yet in sum these
tactics could result only in progressive attrition as the enemy lost village
after village and garrison after garrison.

General McBride and General Grow pressed their commanders
to continue the attack-now really a pursuit-to the limit that men and equipment
could endure. Both armor and infantry strained to keep the retreating Germans
off balance and deny them time and opportunity to dig in for defense of the
Nied Française. On the heels of the advance, corps and division artillery
displaced forward with such speed as the mud and crowded roads allowed. On 11
November the 6th Armored Division celebrated Armistice Day by driving east on
a ten-mile front and advancing about five miles to the Nied Française.
Here, with the help of the 80th Division, the armor secured two bridgeheads
in a series of bold and lucky strokes, and threw across a treadway bridge to
support a third.

Early that morning CCA foundits road blocked
by an extensive mine field outside the town of Béchy. Here the left-wing
elements of the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division reinforced the 48th
and the German resistance was well organized. Entrenched riflemen, covering
the mine field, fought a tenacious delaying action for over two hours. Meanwhile,
the 1st Battalion of the 317th Infantry, which had been leading the regiment
along the high-

[358]

way behind the armor, arrived at Béchy. Lt. Col. Sterling S. Burnette,
commanding the battalion, intended to seize the bridge at Han-sur-Nied and therefore
made arrangements with Colonel Hines to combine forces for the drive to the river.
The augmented column moved toward Han-sur-Nied with a platoon of light tanks forming
the point, followed by five half-tracks carrying troops of the 9th Armored Infantry
Battalion. Company A, 317th Infantry, marched behind the half-tracks. The remainder
of the infantry were strung out along the road to the rear, while the medium tanks
and tank destroyers moved cross country on the flanks of the column.

Shortly after noon the head of the column reached a
patch of woods which looked down a slight slope onto the bridge and the village
of Han-sur-Nied, a little cluster of some twenty buildings on the east bank
of the river. Here the Americans saw a truck-drawn field artillery battalion
moving across the narrow bridge, while beyond the river what seemed to be "hundreds
of vehicles" were streaming along the roads running east and south from
the village. An artillery observer in a light tank radioed for time fire to
be put on the bridge and its approaches. Perhaps this shelling drove off the
German bridge guards, perhaps they were waiting for orders; in any event the
wooden structure, already prepared with explosives and wiring, was not blown.50

Colonel Hines ordered an immediate assault. The 1st
Platoon of B Company, 68th Tank Battalion (1st Lt. Vernon L. Edwards), led,
firing at the Germans in foxholes on the west bank and engaging the antitank
guns across the bridge as it advanced. Behind the tanks the 9th Armored Infantry
Battalion (-) deployed in a thin skirmish line and started down the slope. Capt.
James A. Craig and A Company of the 317th, now reduced to some sixty rifles
by the fighting of the past few days, followed about two hundred yards to the
rear. When only three hundred yards from the bridge, the armored infantry skirmish
line was hit by high explosive shells from a detachment of sixteen 40‑mm.
antiaircraft guns posted on a hill northeast of the village. The armored infantry
froze in their places or tried to reach the shelter of the ditches alongside
the road to the bridge, while projectiles from the German guns, fired with almost
sniperlike accuracy, swept up and down their ranks. The 231st Armored Field
Artillery Battalionturned its howitzers on the enemy batteries, but
as the German gunners were blasted‑arms and legs flying into the air‑others
ran forward to serve the weapons.

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HAN-SUR-NIED

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About this time Lieutenant Edwards' platoon of medium
tanks started across the bridge. The first tank crossed successfully. The second
stalled on the bridge when the platoon commander was hit; for a brief while the
tank stood there, Lieutenant Edwards' body dangling from the open turret.51
The third received a direct hit and burst into flame, but was backed off the wooden
bridge by its commander after he had ordered his crew to leave the blazing tank.
During this effort by the tankers 1st Lt. Daniel Nutter and Cpl. Charles Cunningham,
B Company, 25th Armored Engineer Battalion, ran forward to cut the wires leading
to the demolition charges. Lieutenant Nutter, at the enemy end of the bridge,
was killed just as he completed his task. Corporal Cunningham, who had cut the
wires at the western end, saw the lieutenant fall, raced across the bridge, and
returned with the body of his commander.

Meanwhile Captain Craig's company of the 317th moved
in single file down around to the right and crept toward the bridge, under the
shelter of a railroad embankment paralleling the river. Who gave the order for
the final charge probably never will be known. Perhaps it was Colonel Burnette,
who had been standing erect in the open urging his lead company on and who received
a mortal wound as he neared the bridge. Craig and a few men rushed the bridge,
crossing the 100-foot span "faster than they knew how" amidst a hail
of shell fragments and tracer bullets. Fourteen men from A Company and four
of the armored infantry reached the enemy bank and took cover among the houses
close to the bridge; there they were joined shortly by three of the tanks. Captain
Craig disposed his little force as best he could and through the afternoon held
the approach to the bridge against German tanks and riflemen.

In the meantime the American artillery engaged the German
guns, now reinforced by heavier calibers farther to the east. The enemy gunners
did not succeed in smashing the bridge structure, but their constant fire blanketed
the bridge and its approaches. About 1715 Colonel Hines, who had been wounded,
led a handful of men through the shellfire and across the bridge. Hines then
returned a second time, leading Companies B (Sgt. Joseph Wercholuk) and C (Lt.
Lacy B. Wheeler) of the 317th Infantry. No additional tanks had been committed,
beyond the three already with Craig, because of the danger to the wounded lying
on the narrow bridge. At dusk, however, the bridge was

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cleared and tank reinforcements crossed to the east bank, followed by some two
hundred armored infantry.52 The crossing site
now was held securely, and at 2130 Colonel Lewis sent the 2d and 3d Battalions
of his 317th Infantry over the river to drive the Germans off the high ground
beyond Han-sur-Nied.

On 11 November Combat Team 68 (Davall), the southern
column of CCA, had worked its way in company with the 318th Infantry over the
muddy secondary roads which led to the Nied. During the night the armor threw
a treadway bridge over the river near Baudrecourt (two miles south of Han-sur-Nied),
pushing across with the infantry on the following day. This crossing, however,
had less immediate tactical significance than the one at Han-sur-Nied, for south
of that village the Rotte Creek branched away from the Nied,leaving
one more river barrier for the infantry to negotiate. Although the fight for
a crossing in this southern sector had been successful and opposition light,
cumulative losses were beginning to tell; the 2d Battalion, 318th Infantry,
for example, was so reduced in numbers that on the night of 11 November it had
to be reorganized as a rifle company.

The success at Han-sur-Nied on 11 November was enhanced
through an equally important coup by CCB. Colonel Read's combat command had
struck east in two combat teams with the intention of seizing bridges over the
Nied Française at Ancerville and Remilly. At both these points, however,
the Germans were more alert than their fellows at Han-sur-Nied and the bridges
were blown in the faces of the American advance parties. At Remilly, where Combat
Team 50 (Wall) was stymied, corps artillery fired a "serenade" on
the town, as the CCB Journal remarks, "to commemorate Armistice Day, and
for tactical purposes as well." Colonel Read secured permission from General
Grow to swing farther to the north, although this move would take him out of
the zone set for the 6th Armored. An engineer reconnaissance party, commanded
by Lt. Frederick E. Titterington, 25th Armored Engineer Battalion, led the way
north through the enemy lines. This party discovered a causeway and bridge near
Sanry-sur-Nied. The structure was under eighteen inches of water but still intact.
Lieutenant Titterington took a half-track onto the

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bridge, dismounted, and in a fury of small arms fire walked the rest of the
distance, cutting the demolition wiring.53 The
lead rifle elements of Combat Team 15 (Lagrew) promptly stormed the bridge, wiped
out the defenders on the opposite bank, and established a bridgehead. This position,
however, was not too advantageous for further exploitation since it lay under
the guns of the outer Metz forts on the high ground around Sorbey. The troops
in the bridgehead continued to receive artillery and mortar fire through the rest
of the day and the night of 11-12 November.

CCA and the 80th Infantry Division rapidly exploited
the Han-sur-Nied crossing on 12 November. The previous night the 69th Tank Battalion
(Lt. Col. Bedford Forrest) had been attached to CCA in order to give added weight
to the drive out of the bridgehead. Forrest's combat team led off on 12 November
in an attack along the Faulquemont road. At Herny, about two miles east of Han-sur-Nied,
the column encountered a battery of 88-mm. antitank guns, heavily supported
by German infantry. Here a five‑hour engagement ensued, the enemy clinging
stubbornly to his position astride the highway. Finally one of the 69th's headquarters
tanks, a new and heavily armored model, made a frontal assault on the German
guns, taking seven direct hits without pausing, and enabled the medium tanks
and tank destroyers to flank the position and destroy the battery.54
Farther south, in the triangle between the Nied Française River and Rotte
Creek, the Germans made a last effort to hold back the advancing infantry of
the 318th and 319th, but withdrew when Combat Team 9 (Stablein) intervened from
the north with tanks and armored infantry, outflanking the Rotte position. By
the night of 12 November three bridges were in place across the Rotte and the
infantry were moving across to support the armor in the advance toward Faulquemont.
On this date, however, the XII Corps commander put a new plan of operations
into effect. In this plan, aimed at the seizure of crossings on the Sarre River,
the 35th Infantry Division would be pinched out by an advance on both wings
of the corps. Of necessity, therefore, the 6th Armored Division zone was widened
to the south and the division objective altered to include only the high ground
south of Faulquemont. General Grow was caught somewhat off balance by this change
in the corps scheme of maneuver since a part of CCB

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TANKS IMPEDED BY MUD slow the advance of the XII Corps left wing.

was across the Nied, well to the north of the original division sector. Fortunately
the 2d Battalion of the 2d Infantry had crossed into the Sanry bridgehead during
the morning of 12 November. This freed Colonel Read's troops, and Grow ordered
him to maneuver CCB to the southeast so as to fall in behind CCA.

The advance on the left wing of the XII Corps was beginning
to lose momentum. Rain and mud slowed the forward movement of armor, infantry,
and supplies. Casualties sustained in the fighting since 8 November had been
heavy. The enemy had reorganized and reinforcements were coming into the German
lines west of Faulquemont. Repercussions of the American success at the Nied
on 11 November seem to have resounded as far as the headquarters of OB WEST.
In any event Rundstedt reluctantly released troops to reinforce Army
Group G and ordered the 36th VG Division to move from the Seventh
Army to the First. Late on the night of 11 November General Balck
issued a field order designed to rectify the situation created on the First
Army front by the impact of Patton's Third Army offensive.

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Balck was worried particularly by the collapse of the 48th Division and
the threat in the XIII SS Corpssector. The XIII SS Corps was in
a precarious tactical position, attempting to hold with its right wing on the
Moselle River-at Metz-and with its left at the Seille River line. A breach in
the Seille position might conceivably crack the entire corps front. In addition
the American success in the Han-sur-Nied sector posed a threat to one of the most
important German supply roads, the Han-sur-Nied-Faulquemont-St. Avold highway.
Balck therefore ordered General Priess, the XIII SS Corps commander, to
counterattack at once with the object of restoring the Seille line. Priess; had
no reserves for such an undertaking, and when, on 12 November, the main body of
the motorized regiment from the 361st VG Division came up from the LXXXIX
Corpsto aid the crippled 48th Division these fresh troops could
do no more than retard the American advance.

The XIII SS Corpsreceived more substantial reinforcements
on 13 November when advance elements of the 21St Panzer Division (General
Feuchtinger) and the 36th VG Division (Generalmajor August Wellm) arrived
in the sector. The former had been carried on paper as part of the armored reserve
of Army Group G, but because of the shortage of infantry divisions on
the Nineteenth Army front it had not been able to move north as planned
to meet the American offensive begun on 8 November. When the 21St Panzer
Division finally arrived in the First Army, Balck sent it to wipe
out the bridgehead east of the Nied which CCB, 6th Armored Division, had won
in the Sanry-sur-Nied sector. It will be recalled that the 21St Panzer Division
already had engaged the Third Army, fighting as infantry during the September
battles. Actually the 21st hardly merited the appellation of a panzer
division, though it had been partially reconstituted during the October lull.
Such was the paucity of armor on the Western Front that the German high command
constantly overvalued this division and demanded that it carry out missions
normally expected of a full-strength armored formation. Feuchtinger's division
had been caught and roughly handled in the American Seventh Army attack in the
Saverne area, while in process of leaving the line. When the XIII SS Corps
commander threw the 21St Panzer Division into line against the 6th
Armored Division, Feuchtinger had about nineteen tanks, three assault guns,
and four armored infantry battalions-the latter having only sixty to seventy
riflemen in each.55

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CCB, 6th Armored Division, had proceeded slowly after
the seizure of the Nied bridge on 11 November. This command not only was responsible
for holding the Sanry bridgehead but also had the mission of maintaining the tenuous
contact between the XII Corps and the south flank of the XX Corps. Its proximity
to a boundary between two corps whose main axes of advance were tangential resulted
in confused orders and considerable delay. Lagrew's column widened the Sanry bridgehead
on 12 November by attacks in which A and B Companies of the 15th Tank Battalion,
A Company of the 50th Armored Infantry Battalion, and a few tank destroyers pushed
out to the north, south, and east. Antitank fire, large craters, and mine fields
made the advance difficult. On the north flank the B Company tanks were checked
by direct fire from German guns sited to cover a mine field which extended between
two woods. Capt. C. E. Prenevost, the B Company commander, dismounted and led
the accompanying infantry to find a clear path. Prenevost was shot through the
chest, but refused help for himself until the infantry detachment and its wounded
had been withdrawn. He subsequently was awarded the DSC. During the course of
the day the attack to the south and east had extended the bridgehead by some fifteen
hundred yards. Elements of the 2d Battalion,2d Infantry, which had worked hand
in glove with CCB during the advance to the Nied, joined to mop up east of the
river.

CCB was still straddling the Nied when the advance guard
of the 21S1 Panzer Division, which had assembled in the Forêt de
Remilly, struck on 13 November. During the previous night Colonel Lagrew had
dispatched a small cavalry detachment, commanded by Capt. James Bridges, to
establish a blocking position at the main road junction between Bazoncourt and
Berlize. Lagrew intended to expand the Sanry bridgehead by driving south and
east with the bulk of his combat team while Bridges' task force gave cover on
the north. Bridges' command consisted of D Troop, three platoons of 75-mm. self-propelled
guns from E Troop (both troops of the 86th Cavalry Squadron), and a section
from the 603d Tank Destroyer Battalion. Moving into position just before midnight
on 12 November, the cavalry set up their outposts about six hundred yards south
of Berlize. Bridges had been told that this village was held by troops of the
2d Infantry. Early the next morning the Americans saw considerable movement
in Berlize, but it had been snowing and visibility was too poor to make out
whether the village was occupied by friend or enemy. Suddenly the Germans attacked,
leading with tanks and

[366]

assault guns. Although the Americans gave a good account of themselves, in thirty
minutes they had lost thirteen vehicles and suffered twenty-nine casualties. Requests
for artillery support brought no immediate answer, and Bridges withdrew about
a thousand yards to a hill which sloped down into Bazoncourt. Enemy shellfire
inflicted more casualties, but the Germans could not push the assault home into
the bridgehead.

Lagrew's main force had been checked during the day
by road blocks and deep craters.Late in the afternoon General Grow ordered
CCB to turn the Sanry bridgehead over to the troops of the 2d Infantry and move
its left column back to the southeast in anticipation of further exploitation
east of Herny. CCA continued the attack toward Faulquemont on 13 November, with
the help of the 317th Infantry, driving a salient some two miles in width and
about five miles in depth during a day of hard fighting. At Arraincourt, on
the north bank of the Rotte, the enemy made a desperate stand to hold the river
line so necessary to the protection of his flank. The village fell to the Americans,
but Maj. Milford F. Stablein, who had taken command of the 9th Armored Infantry
Battalion only two days before, was killed while leading the assault.

The 48th Division, reduced to less than regimental
strength and almost completely lacking heavy weapons, had fought stubbornly
to bar the way to Faulquemont, but the events of 13 November showed that the
division was at its last gasp. That evening General Balck gave orders to withdraw
it from the line and lump it with the remnants of the 559th VG Division,
which had taken very severe losses in the Morhange sector. During the night
of 13-14 November the main body of the 36th VG moved in to relieve the
48th. This fresh division was at full strength; its artillery regiment
was well trained and equipped with new guns. Most of the infantry were recruited
from the younger classes and the officers were veterans of the Eastern Front.
During the early fall the 36th VG Division had fought on the Seventh
Army front, but had not taken part in any large-scale engagements
or suffered heavy losses. The move south from the Trier sector had been accomplished
in record time by motor and rail, a feat made possible partly by the bad weather
which had grounded the American fighter-bombers.

The weakened condition of the 48th Division indicated
that a continuation of the American attack might make an irreparable breach
in the German line. Therefore the XIII SS Corps commander hurried the
detachments of the

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36th VG Division to
the front piecemeal as they arrived in the sector. One rifle battalion had been
thrown in to reinforce the 48th during the fight on 13 November.
By the early morning of 14 November elements of all three regiments of the 36th
VG Division were facing the Americans, and the division's complement of antitank
guns was in place at Many, astride the Hansiur-Nied-Faulquemont road.

General Wellm, commanding the 36th VG Division, had
gained considerable reputation as a tactician. Without prior reconnaissance,
however, and without sufficient time to assemble or deploy his division properly,
he was forced to abandon a coordinated linear defense. Instead he established
a series of separate strong points as his companies and battalions moved into
the sector. The position of the 36th VG Division on 14 November leaned
in the north on the Forêt de Remilly, whereWellmhad been
forced to take over a part of the front opposite the American XX Corps held
by the 719th Division. The German position then angled southeast, through
Mainvillers and Chémery, to Landroff on the Rotte Creek. Here the 36th
VG Division hastily dug in-there was little time to wire in the position
or lay mine fields-and awaited the American attack toward Faulquemont.56

General Eddy issued a new operational directive on 14
November which called for a continuation of the attack by the 6th Armored Division
and the 80th Infantry Division. The latter, however, was given the limited mission
of seizing the high ground south of Faulquemont from which the road and rail
communications through the town could be interdicted. The XX Corps was still
engaged in the battle for Metz, and until that operation could be successfully
concluded and the XX Corps be brought east of the Nied Française General
Eddy would have to limit the advance of the 80th Division so as to provide protection
for the north wing of the XII Corps. Since the bulk of the 80th Division had
not yet crossed the Rotte Creek the continuation of the attack devolved on the
armor. CCB, disposed in echelon on the left, was ordered to drive east from
Herny. CCA, already hard against the enemy positions, was given the mission
of seizing a favorable line of departure on the right from which the infantry
could close on Faulquemont. However, the combat troops of CCB were not all assembled
east of the Nied until 1645 on 14 November. As a result Read's command did not
join in the first armored attack.

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The objective selected for the CCA attack was the Côte
de Suisse, a ridge which extended from Landroff northwest to Thicourt. Colonel
Hines, the CCA commander, decided to execute a narrow thrust along the road bordering
the Rotte and attempt to seize the village of Landroff, the anchor point for the
German left flank and a pivot for any flanking movement against the Côte
de Suisse. On the morning of 14 November Combat Team Davall (composed of the 68th
Tank Battalion (-), a company of the 9th Armored Infantry Battalion, and some
tank destroyers) led off in the attack along the river road. By noon the Americans
had taken Brulange and Suisse and were poised for the final assault on Landroff.

German artillery interdicted a two-mile section of the
highway west of Landroff, and the advance down the road was made under shellfire
that took a high toll and left no officers in the leading tank company (A Company,
68th Tank Battalion). In the late afternoon the town was cleared of the enemy,
and a staff officer, Capt. D. E. Smith, was sent in to take command. He had
at his disposal the company of medium tanks, two platoons of infantry from the
44th Armored Infantry Battalion, and three tank destroyers. This little force
was posted to meet the inevitable German counterattack, with the tanks at the
edge of town watching the roads and covered by a few riflemen, while one platoon
of infantry and the tank destroyers were located in the center of Landroff as
a mobile reserve.

General Priess, the XIII SS Corps commander,
feared that the whole Rotte Creek position would collapse with the capture of
Landroff and its bridge. So he ordered Wellm to extend the left flank of the
36th VG Division to the south and retake the village at once. Because
the approaches to Landroff were flat, devoid of cover, and whitened by snow,
Wellm held up his counterattack until dusk. Then he sent the 1st Battalion
of the 87th Regiment and four assault guns, covered by the fire of
the 268th Artillery Regiment, to attack southward from Eincheville. The
first assault, led by two self-propelled guns, succeeded in reaching the middle
of the town before the lead gun was crippled and its gun crew cut down by small
arms fire. The gun following turned tail. Deprived of their support the infantry
fled. A second and stronger assault force attacked at midnight but was stopped
at the edge of the village by the defenders' fire and a heavy artillery barrage.
An hour later a third attack met the same fate.

In the meantime a company of armored infantry had come
in to reinforce the American garrison and other troops had formed a corridor
along the

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Suisse road, there beating off German attempts to encircle Landroff.57
About 0200 the enemy guns opened up, preparatory to a last assault. The leading
wave of this attack was allowed to come within three hundred yards of Landroff,
and then a concentration fired by eight battalions of field artillery cut the
Germans to pieces. Succeeding waves pushed the attack home, however, and reached
the streets of the village. There in the darkness a melee ensued with the combatants
fighting hand to hand with rifles, pistols, bazookas, trench shovels, and grenades.58
Slowly the Americans regained control of the southern half of the village. About
0500 a company of the 319th Infantry came in to take a hand, and the surviving
Germans in the north part of the village were hunted down and captured or killed.
A hundred or more German bodies outside the village gave mute testimony of the
efficacy of the American artillery fire and the desperate nature of the German
assault.

Lt. Col. Harold C. Davall's combat team was in no condition
to continue the advance on 15 November, but with Landroff securely held it was
possible to strike directly at the Cotê de Suisse. At noon Combat Team
44 (Brown) went over to the attack with tanks leading the assault cross country
from Brulange up the slopes of the Côte de Suisse, firing as they went,
and followed by armored infantry and a battalion of the 319th Infantry. By dark
the Côte de Suisse was taken and held in force. The 2d Battalion of
the 87th Regiment was almost completely erased in this action.

The next morning CCA, together with the 318th and 319th
Infantry, started a carefully coordinated and highly successful infantry‑armor
thrust in the direction of Faulquemont. Tanks, artillery, and tank destroyers,
massed on the Côte de Suisse, provided a base of fire. The infantry, intermixed
with the tanks, swept east in a concentric attack which cleared five enemy-held
towns and put the 80th Division on the high ground south of Faulquemont.59

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The speed and the weight of this envelopment so demoralized the weakened 87th
and 118th Regiments that resistance generally was unorganized, wavering,
and at points nonexistent. North of Thicourt, Forrest's tanks charged over Hill
337 and onto the enemy foxhole line~on the reverse slope. Stunned by the American
shelling and the presence of the tanks the Germans froze in their foxholes, in
some cases permitting the tankers to dismount and kill them withTommy
guns. Brown's combat team, CCA, took Eincheville, after a TOT and direct tank
fire had been laid on, and counted some two hundred and fifty enemy dead. CCA
and the 80th took about twelve hundred prisoners during the day and killed a very
large number of the enemy, tearing a gaping hole between the 36th VG Division
and Kampfgruppe Muehlen.60

The successful attack on 16 November placed the 80th
Division in position to interdict enemy movement on the road and rail complex
at Faulquemont. The advance by the left wing of the XII Corps was ordered to
a halt, and the troops turned gratefully to dry clothes and hot meals. General.
Eddy and his commanders already had prepared new plans for a resumption of the
offensive in which the 26th and 35th Divisions would drive to the Sarre River,
and on 16 November a general shift of boundaries within the XII Corps zone signaled
the change in the scheme of maneuver.